The wife of disgraced pedophile TV star Rolf Harris has died aged 93 – a year after her husband.
Alwen Hughes stood by Harris when he was jailed in 2014 for 12 indecent assaults on four minors between 1968 and 1986.
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Rolf Harris arrives at Southwark Crown Court with his wife Alwen in 2014 Credit: Richard Pohle – The Times
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Hughes leaves HMP Stafford after visiting his wife in 2016 Credit: Simon Jones – The Sun
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Harris with Hughes and their daughter Bindi in 2000. Credits: PA: Press Association
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Family 1969 Credit: 2014 Getty Images
Her death certificate states that she died of “stroke, old age, vascular dementia.”
They were married for 65 years before Harris’ death from neck cancer in May 2023.
Best known for the hits Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport and Jake The Peg, as well as a string of children’s TV shows, Harris also painted the late Queen Elizabeth II’s 80th birthday portrait.
Hughes has already been photographed in a wheelchair, and reportedly suffered from Alzheimer’s disease in the last years of her life.
She stuck by her disgraced husband through the court case and his subsequent prison sentence.
She attended every day of Harris’ initial trial alongside their daughter Bindi – although it was later reported that the latter had changed her name to Ava Reeves in an attempt to distance herself from her father.
The pedophile served almost three years in prison before being released in 2017, after which he lived a secluded life.
HARRIS’ CONVICTIONS
Harris was convicted of 12 sexual assaults on girls as young as seven and received a prison sentence of just under six years.
After a jury failed to reach a verdict on further charges at a 2017 hearing, Harris’ attorney read a statement from him that said: “While I’m pleased this is finally over, I don’t feel a sense of victory – just relief.
“I am 87 years old, my wife is in poor health and we simply want to spend the time we have left together.”
Vanessa Feltz reveals she was groped by paedo Rolf Harris on live TV as his wife stood just a foot away in the harrowing ordeal
Speaking shortly after Harris was sentenced in 2014, singer Vince Hill said: “Alwen is very bad. We are all very worried about her.
“I don’t know if he will survive his prison sentence. It is quite fragile. She suffers from arthritis and had a hip replacement and God knows what.”
Harris was accompanied only by his wife and their guardians during his final years at his home before his death.
A family friend told the Daily Mail that daughter Bindi had nothing to say about him for years.
Harris’ health is known to have deteriorated following the sudden death of his poodle earlier in 2022.
WHO WAS ROLF HARRIS?
ROLF HARRIS died in May 2023, almost a decade after being jailed for a series of child sexual assaults.
Before his crimes became public knowledge, the disgraced star was known as a TV presenter, musician and artist.
Harris was born on March 30, 1930 in Perth, Australia.
His parents, Agnes and Cromwell, emigrated there from their previous home in Cardiff, Wales.
Harris showed an interest in art from an early age and was only 16 when a self-portrait he painted was exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
He was also a great swimmer as a young man.
In 1953, Harris, then 22, left Australia for England and a year later landed a role hosting a children’s arts show on the BBC.
Harris married Alwen Hughes, a Welsh sculptor and jeweller, while both were art students in March 1958.
He then returned to Australia to start working in television and start his music career.
It was during this period that Down Under first began using its famous catchphrase – “Can you tell what it is already?” – while on a promotional tour of Australia for Dulux.
Harris returned to the UK in 1962 and re-recorded his hit Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.
Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport was a Top 10 hit in Australia, the UK and the US, and Harris even performed it with the Beatles.
He reached number 1 in the UK in 1969 with Two Little Boys and reached number 7 in 1993 with Stairway to Heaven.
As well as becoming famous for his music, Harris became a popular television personality in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s thanks to his roles on The Rolf Harris Show, Rolf’s Cartoon Club and Animal Hospital.
In 2005, Harris, who lived in Bray, Berkshire for more than six decades before his death, painted the official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.
Harris had one child with his wife, a daughter named Bindi.
In 2023, it was reported that she had changed her name to Ava Reeves in an attempt to distance herself from her dead father.
At the time, private investigator and ex-cop William Merritt, who wrote the book Rolf Harris: The Truth Behind the Trial, said of Hughes, “She’s very fragile.”
Hughes was a jeweler and sculptor, born in North London.
She married Harris in March 1958 at St Saviour’s Church in Paddington.
The couple met at art school.
Hughes grew up in Wales and is known for her eccentric dressing, as well as her decision to have a poodle as her bridesmaid.
A BROKEN FAMILY
The documentary Rolf Harris: Hiding In Plain Sight, which aired on ITV last October, examines how the disgraced star was caught.
It is also being investigated how some members of Harris’ family have cut off all ties, many have stayed by his side, including his wife.
Daughter Bindi’s initial defense of her father after his convictions came at a price.
First of all, the end of her four-year relationship with Malcolm Cox, with whom she had a son, Marlon.
In a 2023 documentary, Chris Brosnan – Harris’ former bandmate and ‘surrogate son’ – suggested his marriage was troubled long before his crimes came to light.
He claims the TV entertainer has consistently “pushed the line”, alleging he cheated on Alwen on countless occasions.
“When it came to women, it was impossible for Rolf to think about his wife and daughter,” he said.
“Before Alwen he would take a woman’s hand, grab their hand and pull her closer…then he would start kissing them all the way up to their hand and he would go up to their neck and then he would kiss their neck.”
Chris claimed Alwen was “devastated” by his affairs and was “left suicidal” because he was constantly working away.
When Harris had an extension built on his house, Alwen reportedly “moved into the new wing” so she was “as far away from him as she could be”.
WHY DID HARRIS GO TO PRISON?
Rolf Harris was convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault in June 2014 and subsequently sentenced to five years and nine months in prison.
Sentencing, Judge Justice Sweeney said: “Your reputation now lies in ruins but you have no one to blame but yourself.”
The disgraced star was released from prison in May 2017 during a retrial on four indecent assault charges, but was rarely seen in public between then and his death.
The last photo of the former presenter before his death aged 93 shows him in a wheelchair after neck cancer required round-the-clock care.
Harris appeared at the Court of Appeal in London in November 2017 to try to overturn his 2014 convictions, claiming jurors in the case had been “poisoned” against him.
One verdict was overturned after his appeal, but the other 11 remain.
Harris is on trial for the second time in 2017, charged with four counts of indecently assaulting three teenage girls, the youngest of whom was 13, at public events between 1971 and 1983.
The retrial heard from three women who claimed Harris molested them when they were young.
They include a woman who claimed he groped her at a music event in London when she was 14 in 1971, and a 16-year-old who told jurors he groped her inappropriately during the filming of ITV’s Star Games in 1978.
The 13-year-old claimed he molested her after an episode of the BBC children’s program Saturday Superstore in 1983.
Harris did not testify, and his lawyers said he had no recollection of any of the events.
His lawyers, who argued the women were motivated by greed, came forward after he was convicted in June 2014 on 12 counts of indecent assault.
After deliberating just under five hours at Southwark Crown Court in London, the jury said they were unable to reach a verdict on any of the four charges and were discharged by Judge Deborah Taylor.
Harris denied all four counts against him.
Harris was found guilty of a series of indecent assaults on children at the height of his fame.
He committed 12 indecent acts against children in the period from the 70s to the 80s, where he regularly appeared on TV.
The crimes were committed against four girls, one of whom was only seven or eight years old.
The trial heard that one of the victims was his daughter’s childhood friend and the other a young autograph hunter.
One count of indecent assault was dismissed due to uncertain judgment in 2017.
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Harris and Hughes, pictured in 2004. Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
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Hughes and daughter Bindi in 2023. Credit: Alamy
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Harris and Hughes visit Princess Alexandra’s tree planting in Hyde Park in 1989 Credit: Times Newspapers Ltd
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