Rolf Harris's youngest victim was proud she put him behind bars before her death
The brother of Rolf Harris’s youngest victim said he was sorry his late sister was not still here to see her abuser die.
Paul Wild said he remains “incredibly proud” of brave Wendy, who was just eight when vile Harris groped her at a disco in Portsmouth.
She is understood to have been one of the first to have approached police about the shamed entertainer in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Mother of five Wendy died in 2019 aged 57 from a brain aneurysm, which is often triggered by stress.
Paul, 64, told the Mirror: “I’m only sorry that my sister went before him really.
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“She was a troubled child and I didn’t know why.
“But after the Jimmy Savile case she felt empowered to come forward.
“It was a battle for her but once he had gone to prison she felt it was job done.”
Wendy was assaulted by Rolf when she was just eight years old (Vagner Vidal/INS News Agency Ltd)Evil Harris was convicted in 2014 of 12 counts of indecent assault on four girls.
They included eight-year-old autograph hunter Wendy, two on girls in their early teens and a catalogue of abuse against his daughter’s friend over 16 years.
But in 2017 the Court of Appeal overturned the conviction against Wendy because the credibility of the only witness to corroborate her story was called into question.
Paul said her sister’s strength in the face of the conviction being overturned still makes him feel proud.
“She was so stoic and she was just happy he was in jail,” he said.
“A technicality does not change the facts of what he did to her. She had done her job and prompted others to come forward, and I was really proud of her.
Wendy (right) and brother Paul (left) in photo taken the year she was assaulted (INS News Agency Ltd)“It’s regrettable she’s not here to see that he’s died, but we’re not throwing parties and neither is my brother-in-law.
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“Wendy put her head above the parapet and, irrespective of the appeal, she was happy she’d done her bit and he was behind bars.
“I think she was one of the first, if not the first, to come forward. Which really took a lot of bravery.
“A jury found him guilty and she helped get him into the dock, that’s what’s important.”
Paul, a former CCTV operator at London’s Imperial War Museum, was at the same disco in 1969 when his sister was abused.
He said he felt “guilt” for not being there to protect her as he was in another area with friends at the time.
Rolf died at his home earlier this month (TIM ANDERSON)Paul said Wendy threw away the scrap of paper bearing Harris’s signature after the assault and remained traumatised by what happened.
Her older brother was by her side every day of the trial.
“What I listened to from the judge in his summing up, the level of detail of what Harris had done and how he had done it - it will stay with me for the rest of my life.
“It is seared into my brain. What he did to his daughter’s friend, it was shocking beyond belief. My sister got off lightly in comparison."
While sick Harris was locked up, he wrote lyrics to a song he had hoped to publish, in which he accused his victims of ‘making me squirm’, claiming they had tried to cash in on old events.
Wendy was upset by a letter he sent from jail to a friend in which he addressed victims with the line ‘perhaps you think you are pretty, still some perfumed sultry wench,’ and later branding them ‘worms.’
Rolf during child abuse trial (Getty Images)Hitting back, Wendy publicly replied in verse: “You chose to remember me 40 years ago.
“You put your dirty hands on me and have not let me go. I still live with the nightmare of your dirty act while all you seem to care about is that your millions stay intact.
“Threats from you don’t seem to stop and continue to be said. Private investigators watching me fill my heart with dread.
“All this has taken its toll and it’s me who has to squirm as just when I thought you could get no lower, you sing that I’m a worm.
“If you think this song will make you another hit, you’re wrong. You’re just a sex offender now put that in your song and sing it.”
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