One of the most difficult aspects of a horrifying new documentary series about the paedophile and serial sexual predator Rolf Harris is how many people knew what he was up to but did nothing.Rolf Harris: Primetime Predator, a two-part Amazon Prime series filmed in the UK and Australia, was inspired by the fact there’s still never been justice for many of his victims in his homeland.While the entertainer, who died in 2023 at his home in Bray, Berkshire, had two trials in the UK (he was jailed for five years and nine months for indecent assault in 2014, but a second trial in 2017 collapsed), there were none in Australia.‘This series started with a simple question: how does the story of a man who is investigated, tried and convicted of sexual offences against children in one country remain largely untold from the perspective of his Australian victims?’ says the show’s director Nick Sweeney.And so he set out to find the answer, encouraging victims – some of them Australian – to speak publicly for the first time. It’s a tough watch. A musician and entertainer who was adored by millions across the globe for his painting and didgeridoo-playing – so much so that he was trusted to front an educational film in the 1980s called Kids Can Say No! warning against sexual predators – Harris was actually preying on children and vulnerable women in plain sight himself.And while his eventual arrest in 2013 shocked his fans, those who had worked closely with him were relieved. ‘What surprised me most was not the scale of the abuse,’ says Nick. ‘It was the infrastructure of silence. Women were warned not to be alone with Harris backstage on TV shows. Executives witnessed his behaviour on set and said nothing. Complaints across multiple jurisdictions fell through the cracks.’Investigative reporter Meirion Jones describes in the first episode how his wife was warned about Harris while working at the BBC. He recalls how an executive told her: ‘Don’t get into a lift with him on your own. Don’t walk upstairs in front of him. It’s mainly the younger women that he targets, but don’t take any risks.‘Management knew Rolf Harris was in the habit of groping, and they were trying to transfer that problem to the people around him, saying to women, don’t put yourself in a position where he might attack you. Rolf Harris: Primetime Predator is a new two-part Amazon Prime series filmed in the UK and Australia about the paedophile and serial sexual predator A musician and entertainer who was adored by millions across the globe for his painting and didgeridoo-playing, Harris was actually preying on children and vulnerable women The documentary also raises questions about his family, asking how much his daughter Bindi, left, and wife Alwen knew about Harris's crimes‘There was a very simple equation: you’ve got top talent who can bring in millions of viewers and who are worth a fortune to the BBC. There’s always been bulletproof glass protecting them, and it’s BBC management that put that bulletproof glass in place.’One victim, a make-up artist called Suzi whose testimony was used in court, revealed how it was similarly accepted at the TV station she worked for in Australia. She describes how, in her early 20s and working at Channel 7, she was told she’d be working with Harris.‘I was excited, I told my parents and friends,’ she recalls. But almost as soon as he got into the make-up chair, he started to stroke her legs. ‘I asked him not to touch me, but not loudly: the first rule as a make-up artist is we don’t upset the talent.‘Each time I went to powder his nose, he’d put both hands up my legs and run them straight up inside my shorts. He’d pull me towards him and try to crotch-grind me. The room was full of men. No one asked him to stop. The director egged him on.’At the end of the day she went to the department head to complain, and was told the network’s executives ‘want to commend you on how you conducted yourself’. She tells the show: ‘They’d all watched me being abused and assaulted, and they were very happy with how I had behaved.’Most heartbreaking of all is the testimony from children he attacked and the impact it had on their lives. One woman describes how she was 13 and temporarily living in a motel in Australia in 1984 with her parents when Harris came into the dining area and immediately started touching her. ‘He was rubbing himself up against me, putting his hands over my shoulders and touching my chest. I just didn’t know how to make him stop. He was reciting a poem, groping my breast in time to his little nursery rhyme.’She reported it to the police but they weren’t interested. ‘They were looking at their watches, yawning. By disregarding it, this behaviour is escalated. He’s repeated it over and over again with children, and all those children have been damaged by him.‘The police could have addressed that in 1984 and they just didn’t choose to. The whole thing leaves you feeling isolated. It’s hard to describe the impact that has on your development and confidence.’Eventually it was one of his child victims who came forward to expose Harris. The woman, who became known as Victim A, spoke out after seeing him perform at the Queen’s 2012 Diamond Jubilee concert. A friend of his daughter Bindi, she was abused at both her home and Harris’s as a child, and the series asks questions about his family that have never been answered. Why did Bindi stand by him in court? How much did Harris’s wife Alwen, a Welsh sculptor who died in 2024, know?Without any definitive answers, it speculates that Alwen was indeed aware, and that Bindi, who declined to appear, relied on her father for money.‘In an era shaped by revelations surrounding powerful figures like Jeffrey Epstein, the Rolf Harris story speaks to how fame, influence and public affection can obscure abuse and why it so often takes decades for victims to be heard,’ says Nick.‘This is about institutional failure and what happens when we finally decide to listen. I hope audiences ask themselves an uncomfortable question: what did we choose not to see?’Rolf Harris: Primetime Predator, from Monday, Amazon Prime Video.