Rolf Harris’ ‘sick Aussie cricket gang rape joke’

A new doco reveals vile comments made by disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris and how he blamed child abuse images found at his home on his grandson.

Disgraced Australian entertainer Rolf Harris’s arrest for a string of indecent sex crimes against young women destroyed his daughter’s marriage after he blamed a pile of child abuse images on his grandson, who was 15 at the time.

A revised ITV1 documentary in Plain Sight – which is set to air in the UK on Wednesday night – reveals how the dead disgraced former national TV treasure was caught and found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault against four women, then aged between 13 and 19, in the 1970s and 80s.

Rolf Harris arrives at Southwark Crown Court in London in May 2017. Picture: AFP

The sex assault revelations shocked his only daughter Bindi – who has now changed her name to Ava Reeves to distance herself from him – after Harris told police at the height of the Met Police Yewtree investigation the child pornographic material they found at his house belonged to his grandson Marlon, who was 15 at the time, and his nephew Buzz who lived in Australia.

Bindi, who at the time was married to Marlon’s father Malcolm Cox, struggled to accept her father was accused of pedophilia and the claims damaged their relationship and destroyed her four-year marriage.

Disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris was supported in court by daughter Bindi and wife Alwen. Picture: Getty Images

According to the two part ITVI documentary, Mr Cox is said to have torn up a photo of Harris and his son immediately after, and said his relationship with Bindi ended “acrimoniously”.

For her part Bindi destroyed two of the entertainer’s paintings and said she wanted to “stab him with a fork”, and felt suicidal, but she later forgave him.

“I realise we are all human and realised I had him on a pedestal. Now I see him as a father and as a man,” she said.

Marlon Cox has not spoken publicly about his grandfather but was quizzed by police, according to Harris’ friend Chris Brosnan.

Rolf Harris, in 1964, served nearly three years in prison. Picture: Getty Images

Pedophile Harris, who died on May 10 from neck cancer, served nearly three years in prison before being released in 2017, and lived a solitary low-key existence in Bray, Berkshire, afterwards.

Mr Cox said learning about Bindi’s childhood friend – who claimed Harris subjected her to 16 years of abuse – drove a wedge between him and his wife and they eventually divorced.

In 1996 the survivor disclosed to Malcolm and Bindi about being sexually abused by Harris from her early teens.

Mr Cox said the revelations “immeasurably” changed his attitude towards Harris having access to their son, then aged just six-months-old.

Rolf Harris with private investigator William Merritt, former PA Lisa Ratcliffe, friend Mike Kelly and former defence barrister KC Stephen Vullo.

Musician Chris Brosnan who met Harris at a charity event in 1998 and grew close to the entertainer through their shared love of music claimed to the Daily Mail he was like an adopted son to the star, who nicknamed him Bear.

“I was his son, chauffeur, Man Friday, confidante … It’s almost incomprehensible to me that the Rolf I saw charming the Queen or lighting up the faces of kids inside hospital is a disgusting pedophile,” Brosnan said.

He said he remembered a sick joke the star told him about a woman being gang-raped by the Australian cricket team.

“We were driving to a corporate dinner and I said, ‘Rolf, you can’t tell that’ and he said, ‘Why not? It’s bloody funny’. I told him it was offensive and he was like, ‘Oh, OK, Bear.’”

Some members of Harris’ family denounced him after the arrest but even though his wife Alwen stuck by him publicly, in private, she cut ties.

The jeweller and sculptor, 91, who is in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s and relies on a wheelchair, moved to another wing in their home in Berkshire after reports of multiple affairs and the arrests.

The documentary quotes singer Vince Hill, who was close to the family, saying he worried Alwen would “drop down dead from the stress of the trial”.

“Alwen is very poorly. We’re all very worried about her,” he said.

In the documentary Mr Brosnan suggests cracks in the couple’s marriage were already visible before his arrests were revealed.

“When it came to women, it was impossible for Rolf to think about his wife and his daughter,” he said.

In 2018 Bindi penned a book called Living With A Pervert in which she said her dad was “no kiddy fiddler” and called his victims “liars, cheaters and thieves”.

It never made the bookshelves but the Daily Star claimed she defended her father as “flirty” and said he was “harmless.”

Originally published as Rolf Harris’ ‘sick Aussie cricket gang rape joke’