Rolf Harris has been found guilty of indecently assaulting four girls in the UK between 1968 and 1986.

The London jury took eight days to deliver unanimous verdicts on all 12 charges of indecent assault.

The 84-year-old has been granted bail until his sentencing on Friday, but has been told to expect a custodial sentence.

Each count carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.

Harris listened impassively - with the aid of a hearing loop - as the verdicts were read out.

Only after the final guilty verdict was read out and the jurors had left the court did Harris finally stand.

He sipped from a plastic cup and then left the dock.

He went into a small room at Southwark Crown Court with his legal team before being joined by his wife Alwen and daughter Bindi, who had broken down in tears after the verdicts and was consoled by Harris's long-time agent Jan Kennedy.

Judge tells Harris to expect time behind bars

Justice Nigel Sweeney made it clear Harris could expect to be sent to jail later this week.

"Given the conviction on all 12 counts, it's inevitable that the type of sentence uppermost in the court's mind is a custodial sentence," the judge said.

The Metropolitan Police released Rolf Harris's mugshot. ( Twitter: Metropolitan Police )

Justice Sweeney thanked the jurors for their service and said they had conducted themselves in an exemplary fashion with scrupulous attention to their duties.

Harris's legal team have 28 days to lodge an appeal on his behalf.

Chief Inspector Michael Orchard from Scotland Yard said the case proved that no celebrity was above the law.

"Rolf Harris habitually denied any wrongdoing, forcing his victims to recount their ordeal in public," he said.

"He committed many offences in plain sight of people as he thought his celebrity status placed him above the law.

"I want to thank the women who came forward for their bravery. I hope the guilty verdict will give them closure and help them to begin to move on with their lives.

"The case and verdict once again shows we will always listen to and investigate allegations regardless of the timeframe or those involved."

Barbara Miller at the Old Bailey Just before the jury came back in, the judge told the court that they had reached verdicts on all 12 counts, and he said that if anyone felt that they would be unable to stay silent while those verdicts were being read out, they should leave the court now. No-one did, but it was certainly a signal that the judge didn't want emotion breaking out in court. The jury forewoman stood up and was asked the jury's verdict on each of those 12 counts and of course came back with the word "guilty" each time. Rolf Harris's daughter reached across to her cousin and Rolf Harris's niece and held her hand tightly. Rolf Harris sat quietly. He was allowed to remain seated as these verdicts were read out and after they were read out, he left the dock, looked somewhat shaken but managed to give his wife and daughter something of a smile and indicated that he would speak to them outside court. Sentencing is due to take place on Friday and Rolf Harris has been released on bail until that sentencing. We can expect that Rolf Harris will go to prison; the judge made it very clear to him that he should and could expect a custodial sentence. Whether he decides to impose concurrent or consecutive sentences remains to be seen. In a comparable case under the same police operation recently, we saw a celebrity publicist sentenced to eight years in prison, the judge there deciding to impose consecutive sentences. A lot of speculation clearly about just what sentence Rolf Harris can expect, but he will be going down for these crimes.

Jenny Hopkins from the Crown Prosecution Service said the verdicts sent a strong message.

"Whenever there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest, we will work with police and victims to bring strong cases which can be put before a court," she said.

"I hope today's verdict provides other victims with the courage and confidence to come forward, no matter who is alleged to have carried out the abuse and when."

Talking on AM this morning, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he felt "gutted and dismayed" by the verdicts.

"Sexual abuse is an utterly abhorrent crime ... it's just sad and tragic that this person, who was widely admired, seems to have been a perpetrator," he said.

"It's very important that we do everything we humanly can do to protect vulnerable young people."

A spokesman for the Harris family said no-one, including the star's lawyers, agents or friends, would be making "any public comments or be available for interview either here or in Australia".

"The Harris family has also asked that their privacy be respected at this time," the spokesman said in a statement.

In addition to the four complainants in the trial, another six women gave supporting evidence that the artist and entertainer had abused them in Australia, New Zealand and Malta between 1969 and 1991.

Harris denied inappropriately touching any of the alleged victims and pleaded not guilty in court. "They are all making it up," he told the jury in late May.

During the case, prosecutor Sasha Wass QC said none of Harris's accusers knew each other but their accounts bore "striking similarities".

She described Harris as a "sinister pervert" who used his fame to mesmerise his victims, treating "underage girls as sexual objects" to be "groped and mauled".

Harris was arrested in March last year on suspicion of sexual offences as part of Operation Yewtree, which was set up following revelations about the late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile.

Main accuser was daughter Bindi's childhood friend

The main accuser was a woman, now 49, who met Harris as a childhood friend of his daughter Bindi.

Harris admitted he had a 10-year affair with the accuser but said it did not start until she was 18 and the relationship was consensual.

The British press report on Rolf Harris's conviction. ( ABC News )

However, she told the court the entertainer began indecently assaulting her at age 13, when she joined the Harris family on an overseas holiday in 1978.

The woman told the court she was taking a shower at their Hawaii hotel and was wrapped only in a towel when Harris gave her "one of his big hugs and tickles".

She said the performer then put his fingers into her crotch area.

The woman said she felt "numb" and disgusted after the abuse happened.

When she was 15, she said Harris sexually assaulted her in her bedroom, before laughing and joking with her parents downstairs.

The woman said she was too scared and intimidated by Harris's fame to tell anyone.

After years of sexual abuse the victim was "emotionally dead", the prosecutor said.

"She was targeted, groomed and dehumanised over a period of 16 years," Ms Wass said.

In court, Harris admitted he admired the bikini worn by the teenager on the Hawaii trip but denied indecently assaulting her.

His daughter Bindi told the court she was with her friend "every single moment of every single day" on the holiday and had not noticed any change in her behaviour.

However, during the trial Bindi wept as she described the moment she later discovered her father's sexual relationship with her friend.

The prosecutor said key evidence was a letter Rolf Harris wrote to the alleged victim's father in 1997.

It was effectively a confession of child abuse, the prosecutor alleged, and was a calculated attempt to avoid the police being informed.

Sorry, this video has expired Look back on the Rolf Harris trial (Photo: AFP - Niklas Halle'n)

The defence said the letter was consistent with Harris's claim of a 10-year affair.

"I fondly imagined that everything that had taken place had progressed from a feeling of love and friendship," Rolf Harris wrote in the letter.

"There was no rape, no physical forcing, brutality or beating that took place."

Harris told the court the woman had contacted him in 1994 and had demanded 25,000 pounds ($45,000).

When he refused to pay, she threatened that her brother would go to newspapers, the court was told.

The alleged victim took her allegations to UK police in November 2012.

Harris accused of groping other children

A second witness told the court she was 13 or 14 when Rolf Harris groped her buttocks at a celebrity event in Cambridge.

Harris initially denied being in the city at that time. However, he later admitted he had been there after TV footage was dramatically uncovered mid-trial of him taking part in a 1978 episode of Star Games in Cambridge.

A third witness said she was only seven or eight years old when the entertainer assaulted her in Portsmouth after she had asked him for an autograph.

She said the entertainer put his hand down her back and between her legs. He then did it a second time, she told the jury.

Harris's defence counsel suggested the entertainer had never been to the community centre in question and the witness must have confused him with another man.

Another witness against Harris was an Australian woman who said the entertainer assaulted her at the home of family friends in Darwin when she was 11 or 12 years old in the late 1960s.

The woman said she froze as Harris approached her, put his arms around her and gave her a tongue kiss.

Bindi Harris was deeply upset by her father's affair with her friend. ( Reuters: Luke MacGregor )

A New Zealand woman told the court Harris had a "dark and evil side" and indecently assaulted her when she was dancing with him when she was 17 years old.

The witness said she told her mother soon afterwards about what Harris did.

"I sat down and told her what a disgusting, vile, repulsive man that he was, and how he had totally taken away trust," she said.

The court also heard evidence from an Australian make-up artist who says Harris groped her at Channel 7 in the mid-1980s when she was 24.

She said the entertainer was known as "the octopus" because of his roaming hands.

Former Australian actor Tony Porter told the court he witnessed Harris groping a different make-up artist in the mid-1980s.

Another Australian witness, Tonya Lee, asserted that Harris had indecently assaulted her twice in an English pub during a theatre trip to the UK in 1986.

The defence argued Harris was "a natural hugger and that left him open to false accusations".

Defence admits Harris 'far from perfect'

Defence barrister Simon Ray said the entertainer was "far from perfect" given he had admitted having two extramarital affairs, but insisted that did not make him guilty of the indecent assault charges.

He asserted the delay of up to 45 years between the alleged assaults and when they were reported to police caused issues for Harris in trying to rebut the claims.

"It's much easier to make allegations like this than it is to rebut them," Mr Ray said, adding that if Harris failed to remember something he was accused of deliberate lies and if he did recall details they were dismissed.

Mr Ray also criticised many of the six women who gave supporting evidence that Harris harassed them in Australia, New Zealand and Malta.

He pointed out that some had kept photographs of themselves with the star.

In one case a mother, who claimed Harris assaulted her daughter and then herself, subsequently put a cartoon the artist had drawn on her daughter's bedroom door.

What mother would do that if she had just been sexually abused, Mr Ray asked the jury.

The lawyer said Harris was of good character with no criminal convictions but that the prosecution had set about destroying his reputation "with vigour and enthusiasm".

He said the trial had occurred with the whole world watching, so Harris had already been punished for his infidelity whether he was found guilty or innocent.

"He has been punished for his infidelity by, effectively, public humiliation," Mr Ray said.

ABC/AAP