LONDON: Rolf Harris could die behind bars after being found guilty of indecently assaulting four girls, including his daughter’s childhood friend.
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And Harris, 84, is facing fresh claims and possible police inquiries in both Britain and Australia.
Harris was labelled a “sinister pervert” during his eight-week London trial and on Monday, after eight days, the jury unanimously backed the prosecutor’s assessment.
Harris will be sentenced on Friday but Justice Nigel Sweeney has already said he would be jailed.
“Given the conviction on all 12 counts, it’s inevitable that the type of sentence uppermost in the court’s mind is a custodial sentence,” the judge said.
The legacy of his decorated 50-year career is already being purged.
Harris has been stripped of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship he was awarded two years ago and will likely lose his CBE from the Queen.
He’s been kicked out of the Australia’s ARIA Hall of Fame and could lose his Order of Australia.
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Harris’ hometown of Perth will tear up monuments to him and his old school has removed his paintings.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was “gutted and dismayed” by the news of Harris’ guilt.
“It’s sad and tragic that this person who was admired seems to have been a perpetrator,” he said.
Several women have come forward since Harris appeared in court and British child protection charity NSPCC said it has received calls from 13 people who claim they fell prey to the performer.
He is the second person convicted under Britain’s Operation Yewtree, established after the Jimmy Savile sex scandal.
British tabloids are reporting Savile once took Harris on a tour of the Broadmoor psychiatric hospital in Berkshire.
Alison Pink, who was abused by the notorious BBC DJ there as a teenager, said the visit was timed as female patients were getting undressed at night “so he and Rolf could look at them”.
Another Harris victim wrote to Buckingham Palace in 2005 when he was painting a portrait of the Queen.
“He ruined my life. You need to know what kind of man you’ve let near the Queen,” she wrote.
Harris sat unmoving in the dock at Southwark Court as the foreman said “guilty” 12 times.
He then disappeared into a small room with his legal team before being joined by his wife, Alwen, and daughter Bindi.
The one-time royal favourite was crestfallen as he walked slowly from court holding hands with Alwen and Bindi.
Senior policeman Michael Orchard said Harris had committed offences in plain sight as he thought he was above the law.
He even featured in educational video warning against the dangers of child abuse in the mid-1980s when he’d been a sex pest for 15 years.
The video featured Harris and kids singing: “You run your own body, let me run mine.”
Harris was convicted of 12 indecent assaults against four girls in Britain from 1968 to 1986. The main victim was a childhood friend of Bindi.
He was also found guilty of assaulting Australian woman Tonya Lee at a London pub in 1986 when she was 15.
Another six women gave supporting evidence that Harris abused them in Australia, New Zealand and Malta between 1969 and 1991.
Louise Anton, from Perth, said in 2008 she had objected to being groped by Harris at a function and the veteran entertainer had replied: “Yeah, but it feels good, dunnit?”.