HARRIS NEAR DEATH
Shamed entertainer has cancer; can’t eat, talk
DISGRACED Australian entertainer Rolf Harris is being fed by a tube and is no longer able to speak as he battles neck cancer.
The convicted paedophile has not spoken publicly since his release from Stafford Prison in 2017. Harris had been found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault, with one of those convictions overturned on appeal.
The 92-year-old’s health took a downward turn earlier this year after the death of his beloved poodle, Bumble.
His curtains are not drawn until 11.30am most days and neighbours say he seldom leaves the Berkshire home where he has spent the past five years with wife Alwen, who is in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s.
Neighbour Portia Wooderson said Harris was “really attached” to the dog and his sudden death “knocked him really badly”. “Soon after, Rolf’s own health took a turn for the worse,” Ms Wooderson said. “Only carers and nurses, who care for him 24 hours, come and go. I’m told he can’t eat any more.”
Private investigator William Merritt, who authored a book about the assault trials that was favourable to Harris, said the once-lauded entertainer was “gravely sick”.
“(He’s) battling a cancer of the neck, and gargles when he talks. It’s difficult to understand him, but he is still the entertainer,” Mr Merritt said. “As soon as one or two people walk into the room, he turns into a big kid again. He’s an artistic type, and he’ll try to perform on cue, even when he’s unwell.”
Mr Merritt said Harris was “naive and trusting” but “he has a dark side”.
“(He) likes to be on his own; that’s how he survived prison. He doesn’t particularly even like kids, he hates the noise.”
The former British national treasure previously insisted he was the victim of his own naivety and of women driven to cash in on the criminal injuries compensation culture of the early 2000s that brought down entertainers Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter.
In a statement for the 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 Savile and Glitter.
“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.
“I’d be in prison serving a sentence for crimes I did not commit if it were not for William’s investigation.”
Harris’s fall from royal favourite, who painted the Queen’s 80th birthday portrait and who was awarded a CBE, MBE and OBE, came when he was sentenced in June 2014 to five years and nine months in jail for 12 indecent assaults on four teenage girls between 1968 and 1986. He was released on parole in May 2017.