A judge said Rolf Harris had shown “no remorse”, as he sentenced him to five years and nine months in prison.
“You have no-one to blame but yourself,” Judge Mr Justice Sweeney told Harris, before passing sentence at London’s Southwark Crown Court.
He told Harris he “took advantage of the trust placed in you because of your celebrity status”, and treated one victim “like a toy”.
Harris, 84, was convicted of 12 indecent assault charges on Monday.
Victim statements were read in court ahead of sentencing, with one woman saying the abuse destroyed her “childhood innocence”.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, said Harris would not stand trial over allegations he downloaded sexual images of children.
They claimed Harris had indecent images of children, as part of a larger collection of adult pornography, but decided it was not in the public interest to prosecute him.
‘Haunted’
In a statement read to the court, a victim said she had “carried” what Harris did to her – when she was aged seven or eight – “for most of my life”.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
I had aspirations to have a career, settle down and have a family… as a direct result of his actions, this has never materialised”
End Quote Victim statement
She was indecently assaulted at a community centre in Hampshire in 1968 or 1969 as she queued to get an autograph, and said she later became “an angry child” who was “unable to trust men” as a result of the abuse.
A statement from another victim, who was a childhood friend of Harris’s daughter Bindi, said the continued abuse she suffered between the ages of 13 and 19 “had a detrimental effect on my life”.
She said the assaults made her feel “dirty, grubby and disgusting”, saying Harris had “used and abused me to such a degree that it made me feel worthless”.
“As a young girl I had aspirations to have a career, settle down and have a family,” she said. “However, as a direct result of his actions, this has never materialised. The knowledge of what he had done to me haunted me.”
Another victim who has waived her right to anonymity, Australian Tonya Lee, said Harris had taken her “ability to feel safe”, adding in her statement that she remained in “a constant state of anxiety”.
She was abused three times in one day by Harris while she was on a theatre group trip to the UK at the age of 15.
“What Mr Harris took from me was my very essence,” her statement said. “I believe that it was for Mr Harris a forgettable moment but it was something for me I will never move on from.
“I know the person I am today is not the person I should have been.”
A statement from a fourth victim, who had been working as a waitress at a charity event in Cambridge at the age of 13 or 14 when Harris abused her, said the experience had had a “huge impact on my life”.
She said the star “treated me like a toy” that he could play with for his own pleasure.
‘Opportunistic’
In mitigation, Sonia Woodley QC said Harris had led an “upright life” for the past 20 years, adding: “It would be unfair to ignore much of the good he has done in his life.”
She said he had been “publicly shamed and stripped of his honours” and said Harris needed to be with his family in the “twilight” years of his life.
The trial had had a “profound effect” on Harris and his family, she said, adding that the abuse was “opportunistic rather than predatory”.
Harris earlier arrived at court with his daughter, but his wife Alwen did not accompany him.
Another woman, who said she was assaulted by Harris in Cambridge in 1977, has told the BBC he was a “fraud” who “hurt women”.
Karen Gardner, who has waived her right to anonymity and who submitted written evidence to the trial, said the entertainer had put his arm round her and touched her breast.
“I was shocked, I was very surprised. This was the man who sang ‘Two Little Boys’ and painted lovely paintings,” she said.
She told the BBC that Harris was not “the man he pretended to be”.
In court
Jane Peel, BBC News correspondent
The queue outside court two began to form at 07:45 BST – more than two hours before the hearing was due to begin. Members of the public had brought their books to fill the time.
When the affable court usher, Billy, unlocked the door, it was not quite a stampede, but it was not pretty.
Two journalists immediately sat in seats reserved for the Harris support team. They refused to budge until told that the media could occupy the 12 jury seats as none of the jurors had taken up the opportunity to return for sentencing.
Another 30 people were sent off to an overspill court where they witnessed proceedings on a video feed.
Rolf Harris had started his final journey to Southwark in a boat from his house on the Thames, in Bray, Berkshire, but he arrived as usual in a car.
His daughter Bindi was with him but there was no sign of his frail wife, Alwen.
Perhaps in contrast to his mood, he wore a jazzy, multi-coloured tie and a light grey suit.
Images
On Friday morning, ahead of sentencing, the Crown Prosecution Service announced it was “no longer in the public interest to proceed with a trial” on four allegations that Harris has downloaded sexual images of children.
Harris’s legal team claimed the models in the photographs were over 18 and said he had accidentally accessed the images when he clicked on links from mainstream porn sites.
Prosecutors had claimed he looked at a site called “teeny tiny girlfriends” and accessed a picture of a girl who was “extremely young in appearance”.
Expert opinion gathered by both sides disagreed over whether the images were of underage girls, with the prosecution claiming one was of a child under 13.
Both sides agreed he had clicked on “young teen galleries” and “Russian virgins” while looking at porn.
Harris’s computer had been seized by police in November 2012.
During his trial, which ended on Monday, the court heard how he used his “status and position” to abuse his victims and that the former television presenter had a dark side to his personality.
The central allegation against Harris concerned his daughter’s childhood friend, whom the court heard he had groomed and indecently assaulted repeatedly, including once when his daughter was asleep in the same room.
The other victims told the court they had been touched or groped by Harris, sometimes at his public appearances.
Six women also told the court about indecent assaults Harris had carried out against them in Australia, New Zealand and Malta. He could not be prosecuted over these incidents in a British court but the evidence was introduced as an added illustration of his behaviour.
Harris, from Bray, Berkshire, was first questioned in November 2012 in Scotland Yard’s Operation Yewtree investigation set up in the wake of revelations about abuse committed by BBC presenter Jimmy Savile.
source: bbc.com
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 