THE cause of death of disgraced Rolf Harris’ wife has been revealed.
Alwen Hughes died aged 93, it was revealed today – just one year after her paedophile husband.
Richard Pohle – The TimesRolf Harris arrives at Southwark crown court with his wife Alwen in 2014[/caption]
Simon Jones – The SunHughes leaves HMP Stafford after visiting her husband in 2016[/caption]
2014 Getty ImagesThe family in 1969[/caption]
Her death certificate says she passed away due to a “stroke, frailty of old age, vascular dementia”.
Hughes has previously been pictured in a wheelchair and was reportedly suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in her final years.
The couple were married for 65 years prior to Harris’ death from neck cancer in May 2023.
Best known for hits Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport and Jake The Peg, as well as a string of children’s TV shows, Harris also painted the 80th birthday portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Hughes stuck by her disgraced husband through the court proceedings and his subsequent jail term.
Speaking shortly after Harris’ conviction in 2014, singer Vince Hill said: “Alwen is very poorly. We’re all very worried about her.
“I don’t know if she will survive his prison term. She’s quite fragile. She suffers from arthritis and she’s had hip replacements and God knows what.”
Hughes attended every day of Harris’ initial trial alongside their daughter Bindi – though it was later reported she changed her name to Ava Reeves in a bid to distance herself from her father.
The paedophile served nearly three years in prison before being released on licence in 2017, and lived a reclusive life afterwards.
It comes as who inherited Harris’ £16 million fortune has been revealed.
His paintings alone were valued at an estimated £12 million.
Harris’ other assets included his riverside mansion in Berkshire, as well as the proceeds from the sale of his businesses when he went to prison.
The former star left the bulk of his estate to his only child Bindi.
However, the convicted paedophile also added his loyal personal assistant Lisa Ratcliff as executor to his will in a last-minute decision before his death, the Mirror reported last November.
Ms Ratcliff began working closely with Harris in 2000 under then-theatrical agent Jan Kennedy who managed him.
WHO WAS ROLF HARRIS?
ROLF HARRIS died in May 2023, almost a decade after he was jailed for a a string of sex attacks on children.
Prior to his crimes becoming public knowledge, the disgraced star was known for being a TV presenter, musician and artist.
Harris was born on March 30, 1930, in Perth, Australia.
His parents, Agnes and Cromwell, had emigrated there from their previous home in Cardiff, Wales.
Harris showed an interest in art from a young age and was just 16 when a self-portrait he painted was exhibited in the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
He was also a keen swimmer as a youngster.
In 1953 Harris, then aged 22, left Australia to move to England and a year later he landed a role presenting a children’s art show on the BBC.
Harris married Alwen Hughes, a Welsh sculptress and jeweller, while they were both art students in March 1958.
He then returned to Australia to take on more TV work and start his music career.
It was during this stint Down Under that he first began using his famous catchphrase – “Can you tell what it is yet?” – 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 United States, and Harris even performed it with The Beatles.
He went on to land a UK No1 with Two Little Boys in 1969 and a No7 hit with Stairway to Heaven in 1993.
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 in Berkshire for more than six decades before his death, painted an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.
Harris had one child, a daughter called Bindi, with his wife.
In 2023 it was reported that she had changed her name to Ava Reeves in an attempt to distance herself from her dead father.
She has also been organising carers for Hughes for years.
Harris was convicted of 12 sex attacks on girls as young as seven and was handed a jail sentence of just under six years.
A family friend previously told the Daily Mail that daughter Bindi had had “nothing to say about him for years”.
Bindi’s initial defence of her father following his convictions came at its own price.
Notably the end of her four-year relationship with Malcolm Cox, with whom she had a son, Marlon.
News Group Newspapers LtdHarris and Hughes, pictured in 2004[/caption]
AlamyHughes and daughter Bindi in 2023[/caption]
Times Newspapers LtdHarris and Hughes attending a tree planting by Princess Alexandra in Hyde Park in 1989[/caption]
PA:Press AssociationHarris with Hughes and their daughter Bindi in 2000[/caption]
WHY DID HARRIS GO TO PRISON?
Rolf Harris was convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault in June 2014 and was subsequently jailed for five years and nine months.
When sentencing, Judge Mr 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 part-way through a re-trial on four accusations of indecent assault, but was rarely seen in public in the period between then and his death.
The last photo of the former presenter before his death aged 93 showed him in a wheelchair after neck cancer left him needing 24-hour care.
Harris appeared at the Court of Appeal in London to try and overturn his 2014 convictions in November 2017, claiming jurors in the case were “poisoned” against him.
One conviction was overturned following his appeal, but the other 11 remain.
Harris stood trial for a second time in 2017, accused of four counts of indecent assault against three teenage girls, the youngest of who was 13, at public events between 1971 and 1983.
The retrial heard from the three women who claimed Harris molested them when they were young.
They included a woman who alleged he groped her at a music event in London when she was 14 in 1971, and a 16-year-old who told jurors he touched her inappropriately during filming of ITV show Star Games in 1978.
The 13-year-old alleged he molested her after an episode of BBC children’s programme Saturday Superstore in 1983.
Harris did not give evidence, with his lawyers saying he did not remember any of the events.
His lawyers claimed that the women were motivated by greed, coming forward after he was convicted in June 2014 of 12 counts of indecent assault.
After deliberating for just under five hours at Southwark Crown Court in London, the jury said they were unable to reach verdicts on any of the four charges and were discharged by Judge Deborah Taylor.
Harris had denied all four counts against him.
Harris was found guilty of carrying out a number of indecent assaults against children at the height of his fame.
He committed 12 indecent acts against children in a period between the 70s and 80s, where he regularly appeared on TV.
The crimes were committed against four girls – one of who was aged just seven or eight.
His trial heard that one of the victims was a childhood friend of his daughter and another a young autograph hunter.
One count of indecent assault was overturned due to an unsafe conviction in 2017.