The owner of a Melbourne hardware store featuring a Rolf Harris mural hasinvited sexual abuse victims to remove the paint-work, according to a report in The Age today.
It’s one small step in wiping the entertainer’s name from cult, celebrity stats — to remove the hints of the convicted sex offender from public view. It follows other steps to unpick the man from British/Australian popular culture, including removing his numerous awards and titles. Trying to forget songs like Jake the Peg and Two Little Boys will be a little more difficult for those who grew up singing such tunes.
For Harris’ four female victims, it’s taken a lot to get to this point. Not just decades of pain of seeing the man who abused them go on to achieve accolade after accolade and seemingly live out his remaining years as a 20th Century icon, but also having to relive the experience by sharing their stories in court.
Now, Harris becomes a 20th Century figure of a different sort. One that represents the widespread, hushed up, abuse that occurred all too frequently, especially by those in positions of power with access to our most vulnerable. They’ve been bishops, priests, orphanage workers, teachers, coaches, carers, entertainers — any profession or job title that comes into direct contact with young people.
Last week, Harris was convicted of 12 indecent assaults of four girls between 1968 and 1986 and sentenced to five years and nine months’ jail.
From Harris to former Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes, and the horrible and daily revelations of the current Royal Commission into institutionalised care, stories of the abuse of children make for daily headlines.
They make daily headlines now because, sadly, such abuse was all to often covered up, forgotten, or ignored in previous decades. Sex offenders usually have multiple victims. Destroying one life is rarely a prelude to being figured out, reported and removed from having access to vulnerable children.
In the UK, media reports reveal the over-60s prison population is exploding due to the number of convicted sex offenders now serving time, usually for historic crimes.
Perhaps there should be some solace in the fact justice is finally being served for such perpetrators. But no amount of prison time, or number of offenders serving time, can make up for the fact it went on. Nor can it account for all those perpetrators who will never have to answer for their crimes, or for those who’ve died — the Jimmy Saviles — or will die before victims can mount a compelling enough case.
We can wipe away all traces of Harris, but we can’t forget the culture he played an active part in. And that’s not the one that saw him get audiences with the Queen and scribble murals on the walls of Melbourne buildings.
It’s the culture of abuse — in Australia, in the UK, and everywhere. The hidden and repeated crimes of those in positions of power that went unanswered for far too long.