NEWS The paedophile recluse
DISGRACED Aussie entertainer Rolf Harris has given up plans to appeal his child sex convictions and has been shunned in his leafy hometown as he battles illness.
Instead the 89-year-old spends his days caring for his long-suffering wife, who is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and building model houses for the few friends who have stood by him.
The fall of Harris from royal favourite to convicted paedophile did not end with his release from jail in 2017.
He has become a recluse in his home town of Bray, Berkshire, sparking outrage when he was spotted near a local school. Hit with huge legal bills, Harris was reportedly considering selling his £5 million ($A9.17 million) mansion.
But a local in the ritzy river town said: “Who’s going to buy that?” News Corp spoke to Harris at his home this month on the banks of the Thames River, 50km west of London.
When asked if was planning to appeal his child abuse convictions, Harris, 89, said: “No.”
And he said that he was suffering from diabetes, which required frequent trips to the local doctors, one of his only regular outings.
“I’ve got diabetes. I’ve suffered from it for 25 years,” he said after a visit to The Cedars Surgery in Maidenhead.
Harris was sentenced to almost six years’ jail for 12 counts of indecent assault in 2014.
But he was released on parole in May 2017 after spending three years inside.
One of those 12 convictions was overturned on appeal in November 2017, while a jury did not convict him in two additional cases in 2017.
But victims say they are still angry and worried that he has hired private investigators to help him prepare an appeal.
“We all thought Harris was such a good bloke, didn’t we?”, said one woman who described herself as a target, rather than a victim, of Harris.
“In the moments after he assaulted me, which was more than once, it dawned on me that the people around me were not seeing what I was seeing. There are still people who think we overreacted or don’t want to believe what is now irrevocably proven.”
But one of Harris’ few friends, who was referred to as Michael by a woman at the entertainer’s house, spoke to News Corp after dropping off a model house for the artist to work on.
He revealed the health of Harris’s wife of 61 years, Alwen Hughes, who was pictured in a wheelchair outside his court cases, had gone downhill.
“It’s Alzheimer’s. She can hardly walk, she has carers in all the time. They are just doing a change of carers now,” he said.
There had been reports that Harris’ daughter Bindi, who has stuck by her dad, was planning to write a tell-all book.
Michael said: “He’s a good guy and he’s doing OK, his wife’s poorly and hopefully you will hear from him after July when his probation finishes.”
Harris lives in one of England’s most expensive areas but he has become a recluse.
Locals had only spotted him once in the past six months, when he was dropped off in a taxi with his dog.
They then went for a walk down Old Mill Lane.