Rolf Harris victims speak out including TV exec and make-up artist
A shocking new investigation into disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris has four victims speaking out against him - describing the way they claim he humiliated young girls and sexually assaulted women over decades of his life.
Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight includes the story of Victim A who was a family friend and was instrumental in gaining a conviction against the TV entertainer in 2014.
The decades-long grooming of Harris' daughter Bindi’s childhood friend from the age of 13 was key evidence that led to his downfall.
A number of other women will also talk about "degrading and awful" treatment that went on for decades in the television industry as they claim he groped women when given the opportunity.
They have waived their right to anonymity to tell the story of how they say his assaults impacted on them, and the pressures that finally forced them to come forward to testify against him in court.
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Rolf Harris released from jail in May 2017 after serving three years of his five years and nine month sentence (GETTY)ITV Factual Commissioning Editor Kate Teckman said: "There has been the extraordinary story of Savile which has been told brilliantly on Netflix, but I genuinely think a lot of people think it wasn't that bad, the focus did get diluted and no one cared as much. When you see what he(Harris) did, it was really, really bad and it has got lost.
"It is an important story and we should reflect on what the victims have to say."
Therapist Chip Somers - speaking on behalf of Victim A
"In the second half of the Nineties, a woman came looking for help for an alcohol problem. And it became apparent that there was a huge secret that she was holding on to them. She was having an enormous amount of difficulty talking about. She claimed she had experienced several prolonged instances of sexual abuse from the age of 13. And she has giving me permission to talk about those experiences.
She said 'This person is very well known, I've been part of the family for some time and I don't know whether or not I should say the name'. I reassured her and she said 'it is Rolf Harris'.
She starts to tell me that her family and Rolf Harris' family were very close.
Psychotherapist Chip Somers speaking in the ITV documentaryThere was a specific point she claims when it changed completely from anything that could be perceived as innocent into a very overt act of sexual abuse, and that changes the game completely.
It then gradually got more intimate, [victim claims Rolf began to request sexual acts to be performed on him]… these things were happening both in his home, in her home, where opportunity presented itself … becoming more intense, more frequent, and she claims she is also quite clearly told, ‘This is something that you cannot talk about. Do not tell anybody about this. This is our little secret … I am a powerful person, I have money, so tread carefully’
She was having to carry this incredible secret, this incredible burden, this incredible sense of guilt and disgust and hatred of what is happening to her."
Chris Brosnan - family friend known to Harris as 'Bear'
"I was in the inner circle with the family, with Rolf and Alwin (wife) and Bindi, my perspective is completely different to many other people who were around him…" Brosnan says on the ITV documentary.
"I was privy to far more predatory behaviour than a lot of other people would have ever seen. There was this shadow that began to creep in and crept in more and more and more," he goes on to claim.
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I ended up promoting Rolf as an artist as well as playing in the band … you know, being somebody who was organising shows.
Bindi would come back on a Sunday normally, so, then it would be Rolf and Alwin and Bindi and me, and they seemed like a regular family if you can remove Rolf Harris being Rolf Harris from the picture.
Chris Brosnan, known to Harris as BearAccording to Brosnan, "when it came to women it was impossible for Rolf to think about his wife and his daughter.
"I mean, he would, on a regular basis, this would be in front of Alwen, he'd take a woman's hand and then hold their hand and pull them in closer to them and then he'd start kissing them all the way up their arm and then he'd get up to their neck and he'd be kissing their neck."
He continues: "It was like he was pushing a boundary and it was habitual. It was, it was, I can't stop myself doing this.
"I remember I was driving Rolf back from the BBC, and there were two schoolgirls in uniform walking along. I'm driving the car and Rolf out of the blue just says 'Jesus, couldn't you just f*** the pair of them?.
"And when he said it, I mean, I'm driving along and he said it and it was, it was shocking to hear him say it. And I looked at him, I said, What? And he said, 'well, just look at 'em. Aren't they just f***ing lovely?'.
"I'm driving a car, Rolf's looking out of the window and he's thinking about f***ing two 14 year olds, two little girls. And so for me, the impact of that, and not only was I furious, not only was I angry about it, I fully expressed the anger that I felt, and I pulled the car over and I said 'I can't f***ing believe that you've just said what you've said'.
Harris pictured in 1972"And he immediately went into 'I'm so sorry Bear, I shouldn't have said that in front of you'."
Brosnan then claims: "And in the months that followed it became apparent that it wasn’t some kind of sick joke that had slipped out. I started to notice resentment from Bindi towards her Dad.
She said it was to do with his behaviour toward one of her friends, something that her friend had revealed to her.
"And to tell you the truth I didn’t want to expand on it, I didn’t want to say 'well what do you mean?'"
"I knew what she meant," he recalls, before going on to claim: "I took it up with Rolf and and he looked at me, cut me off, and he said, 'Bear, we've all made mistakes in life. And I've made some pretty big mistakes and let's just leave it there'. And he walked away … he turned around and walked away."
Karen Gardner - victim who was his bag carrier on TV show Star Games in 1977
Karen Gardner speaking in the two-part documentary (ITV grab)"In the space of I guess about 35 minutes, he assaulted me three times in plain sight. And it was horrible because you’re surrounded by people, and he had a method of operating," claims Karen Gardner.
"I won’t talk about the actual details, but he was paying me attention, he was saying how great I had been, and he, he hugged me, and that that’s when, when it happened. And it was humiliating and degrading and awful and your, your blood turns to concrete."
Speaking in the documentary, she claims: "You can’t believe this is happening. And I have no doubt what was happening. My period was due, and my breasts were very tender, and I had no doubt what he’d done was deliberate. And he did it, he did that twice in the space of, I don’t know, 20 odd, 25 minutes.
"And then it was mid-afternoon and they had organised a couple of taxis and one of the cars came to get him. And I had to get in the back seat of the car."
She continues to claim the taxi driver "was talking to someone, and Rolf Harris got in beside me and assaulted me again.
"Maybe because there wasn’t anyone there, I did tell him to f**k off. And he said something, which makes, still makes me feel sick now. He said to me, ‘You’re irresistible.’ I was 16. He was 48. He was 10 years older than my dad."
Harris was acquitted of assaulting Karen after the jury could not reach a verdict at two trials.
Karen pictured as a childAnita Jacoby - TV Executive Producer, speaking about 2005 incident when she oversaw interview with Rolf for the TV show Enough Rope
"In 2005 I was working as the executive producer for Australia's leading interview show and we were given the opportunity of interviewing Rolf Harris," Anita recalls.
"The host Andrew Denton and I expected that we'd get an interview with a kind of a pretty daggy uncle, kind of character.
"And then it kind of descended into a rollercoaster of emotions. He started talking about his father and the tears welled up very, very quickly."
She continues: "He seemed to be extremely happy after the interview finished, almost like he'd nailed it and he would have people's sympathy.
"I think he wanted to put on the public record something which showed that he had had some demons and there were some dark times but that he’d moved on. He was controlling the narrative…
"We finished the interview and Andrew Denton and I went into an adjoining room."
Anita then claims "Rolf suddenly came in, walks straight over, said 'I need a hug'. And then he immediately grabbed me into a bear hug. He pulled my whole body, including my, my lower body onto his groin, and pulled me right against his body.
"And I immediately recoiled and I pushed him away. And I said 'that's not a hug, that's a grope'. And I, I looked at him, there was no remorse, no reaction, no apology.
"I had heard that when he'd worked in television studios, that he was a bit of a letch. But I never for one moment, realised that I would be on the receiving end of that behaviour."
Suzi Dent - Make up artist for Channel 7 in Australia groped by Harris in 1986
Suzi Dent appears in the ITV programme (ITV grab)"I was 23. I’d really started to hit my stride as far as getting more work in television commercials and in TV shows," Suzi says when speaking on the ITV show.
"I was told in advance that I was meeting Rolf Harris. So, I was very excited to be working with him. Told my mum and dad because they were fans of his, I told some of my friends.
"I took him into my make-up room. which consisted of a chair. A bit like erm, an old barber’s chair, and you had a footrest and even a headrest, so they could relax, the talent can relax … I had to erm, we used to call it powdering your nose.
"You’d walk up with a powder puff and blot the sweat off their face, which is what I had to do quite regularly because he sweats and because the lights are hot."
She continues to claim: "Each time however, as I walked up to him to do that, he touched me. He slipped his right arm down there, while I was standing towards him and he put his hand all the way up my leg and up my shorts and just ran his hand up my leg and up my shorts.
"I would grab his hand and give his hand back to him, ‘Please don’t do that’.
Suzi as a young makeup artist"He would grab the belt around that was hanging down and twice, he pulled, he pulled the belt towards him, to try and crotch grind me, while I was standing there and trying to blot the sweat off his face," she claims.
"It was very disappointing that this man that I had grown up with, as a young girl, was behaving in this way.
"When I looked into his face, he just looked back at me with such a lascivious look, that made me feel really uncomfortable because I all of a sudden, saw who he was."
Suzi then claims: "He was letting me know that he was in full control, and he could do whatever he wanted. He knew he could touch me with impunity. He knew I wasn't going to say anything back because don't upset the talent. The talent is the most important in the whole shoot.
"That would have lost me my job and my career. It could have affected all the crew in the room. It could have affected the director. Channel 7 for all I know, could have lost millions of dollars. So, I felt a really big sense of responsibility, because of the other people in the room with me."
Suzi's allegations of assault were not tried in court because they occurred outside the UK.
Rolf Harris
Harris leaving Southwark Crown Court on May 22, 2017 (Getty Images)In June 2014, Harris was found guilty of 12 counts of indecently assaulting four girls in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Harris, who lives in Berkshire with his wife of 64 years, Alwen Hughes, who has Alzheimer’s disease, was released from prison six years ago.
Last October he was described as "gravely sick" and receiving round-the-clock care according to friends and neighbours.
Harris was released from jail in May 2017 after serving three years of his five years and nine month sentence after being found guilty of 12 counts of sexual assault, one of which was later overturned.
Harris has not spoken out publicly since his release from jail.
But In a statement for William Merritt's 2022 book Rolf Harris: The Defence Team’s Special Investigator Reveals the Truth Behind the Trials, Harris said: “I understand we live in the post truth era and know few will want to know what really happened during the three criminal trials I faced – it’s easier to condemn me and liken me to people like Saville and Glitter.
“I was convicted of offences I did not commit in my first trial. That is not just my view but the view of the Court of Appeal who overturned one of my convictions. I had already served the prison sentence by the time of the appeal.
“I changed my legal team after the first trial, and I was told that if the truth was out there, William (Merritt) would find it and he did. The evidence he found proved my innocence to two subsequent juries.
“I’d be in prison serving a sentence for crimes I did not commit if it were not for William’s investigation. It is difficult to put into words the injustice that I feel.”
Bindi Harris admitted learning about her father and Victim A in the late 1990s, but claimed Victim A was 18 and the relationship was consensual.
Harris was acquitted of assaulting Karen Gardner after the jury could not reach a verdict. Suzi Dent’s allegations of assault were not tried in court because they occurred outside the UK.
*Two-part documentary Rolf Harris: Hiding In Plain Sight is released on ITVX on May 18.
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