Rolf Harris: Disgraced entertainer and serial sexual abuser dies aged 93

Rolf Harris, the disgraced Australian entertainer jailed for a string of sexual assaults on young girls, has died aged 93 of neck cancer.

The once proud son of Perth, Harris’ death was confirmed by a registrar at Maidenhead Town Hall in the south-east of England and a statement was released on behalf of the family, revealing he had already been laid to rest.

“This is to confirm that Rolf Harris recently died peacefully surrounded by family and friends and has now been laid to rest,” the statement read.

“No further comment will be made.”

The Daily Mail reported a private ambulance had been spotted outside his house on May 11, with two sources close to his family saying he had died two weeks ago. His death was registered with local authorities on Tuesday.

Harris’ health went downhill last year as he could no longer speak and was being fed by a tube.

He is survived by his grandson Marlon, 25, daughter Bindi, 59, and wife Alwen, 91, who is in a wheelchair with Alzheimer’s.

Bindi Harris did not comment on her father’s death.

“In recent years Bindi has nothing to say about her father. She gets very stressed when asked about him and prefers not to talk about him,” a friend told the Mail.

He was sentenced in 2014 to five years and nine months in jail for 12 indecent assaults on four teenage girls in the UK between 1968 and 1986.

One conviction, relating to an allegation he indecently assaulted an eight-year-old girl, was later overturned but judges dismissed his application to challenge the other 11 convictions.

The victims included two girls in their early teens and a friend of his daughter, who claimed he molested her when she was 13 to 19.

When he was convicted prosecutors said he had a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality who used his fame to exploit his victims.

He was released on parole from Stafford Prison in 2017, and largely disappeared into obscurity.

Born in Perth on March 30, 1930, he was once known as the “Boy from Bassendean” and had left a significant cultural impact on Western Australia.

Following his conviction, the Town of Bassendean stripped the entertainer of his status as “Freeman of the Town”, removed his artworks and a bicentennial plaque in his honour, which was out the front of his childhood home overlooking the Swan River.

The Western Australian department of education removed artwork from the Perth Modern School where Harris attended secondary school.

The City of Perth scratched his name from a commemorative plaque on St George’s Terrace, and he was removed from both the Australian and British honours systems.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts, which had described Harris as “one of the world’s most iconic entertainers,” said it would withdraw his fellowship.

Before his arrest in 2013, Harris was one of Australia’s biggest entertainment exports to the United Kingdom, rising to popularity with his television shows in the 1960s.

He was best known for his children’s television shows such as Rolf’s Cartoon Club.

His television career was bolstered by his well-known songs such as Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, Jake the Peg, and Two Little Boys.

He topped the music charts in the UK and Australia and appeared at Glastonbury Festival several times.

Harris was also well-known for playing an instrument of his own invention: the wobble board.

By the 2000s, he was considered by many to be a national treasure of sorts with Queen Elizabeth II sitting for a portrait painted by him in 2005 to mark her 80th birthday.

Harris also starred in a concert celebrating the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee outside Buckingham Palace in 2012.