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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Tamara Davison

Rolf Harris’ victims to appear in ITV documentary about disgraced entertainer

Rolf Harris’ heinous crimes are set to be explored in a new two-part documentary commissioned by ITV about the convicted paedophile.

Five years since Harris was released from prison, victims of the disgraced television personality will speak out in a show that traces his rise and fall from grace.

Under the working title, Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight, ITV will piece together interviews with his victims, as well as police officers, and colleagues.

The Australian performer was jailed in 2014 for five years and nine months for 12 indecent assaults involving underage girls between 1968 and 1986.

Charged: TV personality Rolf Harris (Tim Whitby/Getty Images)

He pleaded not guilty at the time of the highly publicised court hearing. Harris served three years of his sentence before he was released on license in 2017.

In May 2017 he was formally cleared of four unconnected historical sex offences, which he had denied. The same year, one of the convictions brought against him that he had indecently assaulted an eight-year-old girl was overturned as unsafe.

Prior to his convictions, Harris had established himself in the public eye throughout the decades as a harmless entertainer and television presenter. In 2005, he was even commissioned to create a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II to mark her 80th birthday.

Speaking about the upcoming two-part series, ITV commissions Kate Teckman said that she hopes the documentary will give Harris’ victims a voice.

“There are few stories as shocking as Rolf Harris,” she said in a statement. “These films give a voice to Harris’ accusers, and will reveal just how the seemingly wholesome ‘national treasure’ was able to molest and abuse his victims in plain sight.”

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