Entertainment
What happened to Australian entertainer Rolf Harris after his arrest?-Pierra Willix-Entertainment – Metro
The entertainer had a huge fall from grace once his offending was revealed.
Rolf Harris was arrested for the first time in 2012 (Picture: Carl Court/Getty Images)
Rolf Harris was once considered a national treasure, however had a well-documented fall from grace after he was arrested for the abuse of young girls.
The Australian-born entertainer had worked in the entertainment industry for decades, as a musician, singer-songwriter, composer, comedian, actor, painter and television personality.
Throughout the years he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (in 1968); then was advanced to Officer in 1977, then to Commander in 2006, and even famously painted a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2005.
But in 2012 when the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal broke, Harris was arrested as part of the Operation Yewtree police investigation.
Two years later he was convicted and sent to jail of the sexual assault of four underage girls, one of whom included his daughter’s childhood best friend.
Now his fall from grace has been captured in the two-part documentary series Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight, which is available to stream on ITVX.
While Harris has effectively disappeared from the public eye since being released from prison, he is still alive, but where is he in 2023?
Why was Rolf Harris arrested?
Harris was charged with offences dating back to the 1980s (Picture: ITV)
After the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal broke, Harris was one of 12 people arrested and was questioned about historical allegations of sexual offences for the first time in May 2013.
While he denied any wrongdoing and was released on bail without charge, in August he was again arrested and the charged with nine counts of indecent assault dating to the 1980s.
Those involved two girls between 14 and 16 years old, and four counts alleging production of indecent child images in 2012.
In December of the same, the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that Harris was facing three further counts of sexual assault.
The new charges were of alleged assault against females aged nineteen in 1984, aged seven or eight in 1968 or 1969, and aged fourteen in 1975.
At a further hearing at Southwark Crown Court in January 2014, Harris pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Did Rolf Harris go to prison?
His trial happened back in 2014, after which he was found guilty and sentenced to nearly six years in prison (Picture: Carl Court/Getty Images)
Following delays in the trial, which also involved the judge’s summing-up of the case taking three days in itself, the jury spent over a week deliberating before finally finding him guilty on all 12 counts of indecent assault.
In July 2014 Harris was sentenced to a total of five years and nine months in prison.
When explaining the sentencing, the judge told Harris he had shown ‘no remorse’ for his crimes.
‘Your reputation now lies in ruins, you have been stripped of your honours but you have no one to blame but yourself,’ he said.
Harris served his sentence at HM Prison Stafford and was released on May 19, 2017 after serving three years.
A few months later one count that had found Harris indecently assaulted an eight-year-old girl in Portsmouth was overturned as unsafe.
Although he applied for permission to appeal against convictions concerning the three remaining girls, it was refused.
Where is Rolf Harris now?
Harris was seen outside his home in Bray in 2019 (Picture: PA)
Now aged 92, Harris is believed to have returned to live in his multi-million pound estate in Berkshire upon his release from prison.
In 2019 it was reported that he was living as a recluse and rarely leave his home, while in recent months it’s been reported that he was ‘gravely ill’.
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He is said to spend his days with wife Alwen Hughes, who he met at art school when she was a sculptor, and whom stood by him in the trial.
However, he was seen in public four years ago when he infamously showed up in the grounds of a primary school where he was spotted waving at schoolchildren before being asked to leave.
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