Australian PM says thoughts with late TV entertainer Rolf Harris’ victims

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during a joint press conference with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi after a bilateral meeting at Admiralty House in Sydney on May 24, 2023. Albanese on the same day said he was thinking of the victims of convicted under-age sex offender Rolf Harris, who died on May 10, 2023, aged 93. SAEED KHAN / POOL / AFP

SYDNEY, Australia—Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday, May 24, he was thinking of the victims of convicted under-age sex offender Rolf Harris, who died this month aged 93.

The Australian-born Harris, once one of Britain’s best-loved television entertainers, was jailed for five years and nine months in 2014 after being found guilty of a dozen counts of abuse against young girls between 1969 and 1986.

“My thoughts are with victims for today, not just victims of Rolf Harris but for others as well,” Albanese told ABC radio.

“It will be a day in which traumatic experiences could be revisited and my thoughts are with them,” he added.

“I hope that they, if they need support, reach out and get it today — that’s who my thoughts are with today.”

Harris’s family said in a statement on Tuesday that he had died peacefully surrounded by family and friends. They asked for privacy.

He died at his home in Bray, west of London, on May 10 of “metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of neck” and “frailty of old age,” according to his death certificate, dated May 23. His body was cremated.  /ra

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