Victims recall Rolf Harris’ ‘evil’

Victims of the disgraced Australian entertainer rejoiced at news of his death and remembered the horror he inflicted upon them.

Rolf Harris’ victims have remembered his ‘evil’ following the disgraced entertainer’s death.

The downfall of the vile Rolf Harris was so great his family decided to cremate his body and have a small private farewell to avoid it becoming a public flagellation.

Victims of Harris described the Australian entertainer and painter as evil and a predator.

A totally blind victim, Dr Lin Berwick, who said Harris assaulted her for 10 minutes when the two of them were alone in a room when she was 27, said “Yippee, thank God”.

BBC radio host Karen Gardner, who also waived her right to anonymity, was assaulted by Harris when she was 16 and tweeted: “Very few of us escape the impact of evil people.

“What we have to do is expose them, share and stand together to dilute the pain.

“For me it was Rolf Harris but he inflicted much worse on other girls.”

Television and radio personality Vanessa Feltz said she had also been assaulted by Harris live on air, describing how she had been forced to throw to a break to get away from him on the morning segment, The Big Breakfast Bed.

Harris, 93, died of neck cancer on May 10 and inquiries were made by the press soon after because a private ambulance, often used by undertakers, was seen at his luxurious riverside abode on The Thames in Bray, west of London on the following day.

At the time Harris’s daughter Bindi, who stood fast by his side for his 2014 court appearances, where Harris was sentenced to nearly six years’ jail for sex offences on young girls and teenagers, refused to comment, and the family lawyer indicated he had received no instructions.

But Harris’s death became public when a death notice was registered with his local council on Monday May 23, showing that he had already been cremated and that he had died from cancer of the neck.

Harris, who had been a recluse since being released from prison in May 2017, had had trouble walking and eating in his final months.

The family had wanted to avoid the high-profile coverage a funeral would have created, given the intense interest in his crimes by the British and Australian public during the three court cases.

At the time there was no sympathy for Harris, whose fall from grace was rapid and dramatic.

Judge Mr Justice Sweeney said when sentencing Harris for 12 sex crimes on four women: “Your reputation now lies in ruins, but you have no one to blame but yourself.”

Bindi Harris stands to inherit the bulk of Harris’s $30m estate, the court was told 10 years ago, but that amount may have been whittled down by a further two court trials and the subsequent private medical care afforded both to Harris and his wife, Alwen, who is in a wheelchair with dementia.