Paedophile entertainer Rolf Harris died penniless after 'wiping out £16m fortune to make it harder for victims to access'
21 November 2024, 00:41
Disgraced sex offender Rolf Harris died without a penny to his name, court documents have revealed.
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The paedophile entertainer died earlier in May last year aged 93 following a battle with neck cancer.
At the time of his death, reports suggested he would leave around £16million to his wife Alwen and daughter Bindi, 60.
However, court documents released at the time of his death showed his assets to be worth £438,802.
Expenses then brought that sum down to zero.
Read more: Rolf Harris's final days: Living in the dark, unable to speak and shooed away from a primary school
Now, it has been claimed Harris purposely carved away at his fortune to prevent his victims from seeking financial compensation after his death.
Ex-detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who played a role in convicting the disgraced performer, told The Sun: “This is yet another disgrace.
“He has obviously planned to get rid of money and assets and there is no way he’d have actually been penniless.
“He had amassed a huge amount of wealth and I would assume he has squirreled it away to avoid victims making claims on it, even after his death.
"The man had no shame.”
Harris, who was born in Perth, Australia, in 1930, became a national treasure and achieved fame for his paintings and work on children's programmes.
Such was his fame and high-regard, he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in 2005.
Harris came to the UK in 1953 to study and built a life as one of the country's most prominent and popular entertainers.
But he was exposed as a sex offender when he was convicted of indecent assault against four girls in 2014 amid Operation Yewtree, and was jailed for five years and nine months.
The crimes happened between 1968 and 1986.
Harris was also stripped of his CBE, OBE and MBE.
During the trial, it was claimed one of the girls was a childhood friend of his daughter's. Another had been a fan who was looking for an autograph.
One victim said in a statement read out in court: "The attacks that happened have made me feel dirty, grubby and disgusting.
"The whole sordid saga has traumatised me.
"I have panic attacks and suffer from anxiety. The effects of the abuse have been with me for many years. I started drinking at the age of 14 to 15 years old.
"This was to block out the effects of what he was doing to me."
The judge in that case said he used his celebrity status to his advantage and demonstrated no remorse.
He served three years of his sentence and was released in 2017 during a retrial for four indecent assault charges, but kept a low profile since then.
One of the 12 indecent assault convictions was later overturned by the Court of Appeal.
