Veteran Australian entertainer Rolf Harris, a household name in his homeland and in Britain who presented prime-time TV shows mostly aimed at children, was jailed for five years and nine months for assaulting young girls over two decades.

On Monday, Harris, 84, who was also well-known as an artist and musician, was found guilty of 12 counts of assaulting four girls, some as young as seven or eight, between 1968 and 1986.

An artist and musician who presented prime-time TV shows mostly aimed at children, Harris is the biggest name to go on trial since British police launched a major investigation after revelations that the late BBC TV host Jimmy Savile was a prolific child sex abuser.

During the trial, the prosecution had portrayed the bearded, bespectacled entertainer, who once painted Queen Elizabeth's portrait, as a predator who groomed and abused one woman for her entire teenage and young-adult life.

Harris is one of more than a dozen ageing British celebrities to have been targeted by police as part of the same over-arching investigation, named Operation Yewtree, which was launched after the revelations about Savile emerged.