What did Rolf Harris do? Why was he jailed?

Rolf Harris has passed away at the age of 93 after a long period of ill health.

The disgraced TV star previously had difficulty speaking or eating and has lived as a near recluse in his £5million home in Berkshire since being released from prison in 2017.

But what did Rolf Harris do? Why was he in prison? What was he convicted of?

Read on below for everything you need to know about why Rolf Harris was imprisoned.

What did Rolf Harris do?

In March 2013, as part of the UK police investigation into sexual abuse allegations known as Operation Yewtree, Harris was one of 12 people arrested for questioning over historic sex crime allegations.

Harris appeared before Westminster Magistrates Court on 24 September 2013, where he was charged with nine counts of assault and four counts of making indecent images of children. Harris pleaded not guilty to these charges and was released on bail.

Three months later, in December 2013, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed that Harris was facing three more charges of sexual assault.

The CPS said the new charges related to allegedly assaulting women aged nineteen in 1984, seven or eight years old in 1968 or 1969, and fourteen years old in 1975. Again, Harris pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The allegations were unrelated to the crimes committed by Jimmy Savile, with Harris maintaining his innocence at the time. He was subsequently released without charge.

However, in August 2013, he was arrested again as part of the operation and was found guilty of nine counts of indecent assault in the 1980s.

Has he been convicted of child crimes?

Harris was tried by Southwark Crown Court on 6 May 2014. Seven of the 12 charges involved allegations of a sexual relationship between Harris and one of his daughter’s friends.

Harris denied the allegations and claimed he had not entered into a sexual relationship with the girl until she was 18.

Rolf Harris poses with his CBE Investitures at Buckingham Palace in 2006. He was later stripped of the award in 2015

Three charges related to the assault of a 15-year-old Australian girl who visited the UK in 1986. One charge was that in 1968 or 1969 he sexually assaulted an eight-year-old girl who asked for his autograph at a community center in Hampshire. .

When questioned by police about this allegation, Harris replied, “I would just never touch a child inappropriately.”

When did he go to prison?

After a lengthy trial at Southwark Crown Court in 2014, Harris was convicted of 12 counts of sexual assault and sentenced to five years in prison.

Commenting on his sentence, Mr Justice Sweeney told Harris, ‘You have shown no remorse at all for your crimes. Your reputation is now in ruins, you have been stripped of your honour, but you have no one to blame but yourself.”

Following his conviction, Harris served out his sentence at HM Prison Stafford, which began in 2014.

Harris later released a statement in William Merritt’s book Rolf Harris: The Defense Team’s Special Investigator Reveals the Truth Behind the Trials.

“I understand that we live in the post-truth era and know that few will want to know what really happened during the three criminal trials I underwent – it’s easier to judge and compare me to people like Savile and Glitter,” said Harris.

“I was convicted of crimes I did not commit in my first trial. That is not just my opinion, but the opinion of the Court of Appeal that overturned one of my convictions. I had already served the prison sentence at the time of the appeal.

“I changed my legal team after the first trial, and I was told if the truth was out there, William (Merritt) would find it and he did.

After serving nearly three years of his five-year sentence, Harris was paroled in 2017.

A recent ITV documentary entitled ‘Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight’ explored the rise and fall of the Australian. Pictured: A police photo of Harris

What did Rolf Harris die of?

Private investigator, author and former police officer William Merritt, author of the book Rolf Harris: The Truth behind the Trials, told MailOnline that he had last met him in late 2022 and that he was seriously ill. He said, “Rolf has been very ill. When I saw him, he could talk to me. He was there, but he was clearly unwell’.

The disgraced TV star had been ‘very ill’ with neck cancer since leaving prison six years ago, and lived as a recluse with his wife in Bray.

In May 2023, a private ambulance was photographed outside his riverside home. Two sources close to the family told MailOnline that he has passed away.

His death certificate stated that he had died of neck cancer.