How Rolf Harris moved £1m to stop it compensating his victims

Sex criminal Rolf Harris moved his fortune out of his own name to prevent it going to his victims in compensation payments, MailOnline has learned.

Harris's will was published this week revealing that his assets were £438,802 at his death but after expenses were removed the net value of his estate was zero.

But MailOnline has learned that he only left nothing because more than £1million that had been in his name for years was recently earmarked to go to relatives instead.

Financial documents just published show that his family have already received £662,309 and stand to get a further £547,000 since he died last year.

And we can reveal that, far from dying in poverty, a complex web of companies had been used to manage much of his fortune.

His family will benefit from just over £1.2 million as a result of the moves which includes a £127,000 HMRC tax refund.

After he died aged 93 in May last year, the family moved to close two firms which were controlling the £1.2million fortune.

This was the final cash left from assets which at one point were said to be as much as £16million but which he began to dispose of as he became engulfed in sex crime allegations.

The vile paedophile died of neck cancer and old age last year after spending his final six years following his release from prison living as a near-recluse with his wife in their £5million riverside mansion in Bray, Berkshire.

Harris was convicted of 12 indecent assaults after a trial exposed an avalanche of evidence showing his disturbing behaviour towards women and girls.

The entertainer was convicted of abusing a close friend of his daughter, Bindi, over the course of 16 years, as well as an eight-year-old girl seeking an autograph and two girls in their early teens.

The funds were held in RHE Investments Limited, which is controlled by a second firm, Myfanwy Investments Limited, which was owned by wife Alwen, 93, and a family trust.

Alwen, who's middle name is Myfanwy, died in September this year and much of her fortune is likely to be left to their daughter Bindi, 60.

Liquidators are closing both firms and documents published this week show that Myfanwy Investments paid out £662,309 to shareholders in December last year and is expected to pay out a further £547,000.

The shareholders at the time were Alwen and the Alwen Harris 2012 Family Trust and control is likely to be passed to daughter Bindi, who was the couple's only child.

RHE Investments is awaiting a tax refund of £127,000 from HMRC, which will form part of the £547,000 which will be paid to Myfanwy Investments and in turn go to shareholders.

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Liquidators closing Myfanwy Investments wrote in a report published this month: 'According to the Declaration of Solvency lodged in these proceedings, the assets of the company had an estimated value of £1,209,557, which comprised principally of investments in RHE Investments Limited.'

Myfanwy Investments was set up in January 2015 after Harris was sentenced to five years and nine months for indecently assaulting young women and girls in July 2014.

One of the reasons he was said to be worth so much may have been because he retained a huge cache of his own paintings - which at one point would sell for more than £100,000 each but are now virtually worthless.

The £5million house is still listed on the Land Registry as belonging to both Harris and his wife. As they co-owned it and she was still resident after his death, it's thought to have passed to her and will now appear in her estate when her will is eventually published.

Other money went on the 24-hour care support he and Alwen both required in their later years.

The whereabouts of the rest of Harris's apparent fortune remains unclear.

The trial judge Mr Justice Sweeney said: 'You have shown no remorse for your crimes at all. Your reputation now lies in ruins, you have been stripped of your honours, but you have no one to blame but yourself.'

In December 2016 the family were reported to have taken £2.9million from RHE Investments Ltd.

Harris had resigned as a director of the firm in 2015 and left wife Alwen, niece Jennifer and brother Bruce as directors. Jennifer, 71, remained a director of RHE and Myfanwy Investments.

Around the same time, the veteran presenter put RHE Holdings into liquidation paying out more than £1million from the company controlled by Harris who owned 55 per cent of the shares and Alwen who owned the remaining 45 per cent.

MailOnline is attempting to contact Bindi and Jennifer.