Rolf Harris has been jailed for five years and nine months for indecently assaulting young women and girls after the trial judge told the 84-year-old entertainer he had taken advantage of the trust provided by his fame.

"You have shown no remorse for your crimes at all," Mr Justice Sweeney told an expressionless Harris, who sat in the glass-walled dock at Southwark crown court. "Your reputation now lies in ruins, you have been stripped of your honours, but you have no one to blame but yourself."

In the case of three of the four victims, Sweeney told Harris, he "took advantage of the trust placed in you because of your celebrity status" to carry out the attacks. With the final victim, the childhood friend of Harris's daughter Bindi Nicholls, who Harris began grooming aged 13, the star abused a different type of trust; the trust placed in him by the girl's parents.

"You clearly got a thrill from committing the offences whilst others were present or nearby," the judge told Harris. "Whilst such others did not realise what you were doing, their presence added to the ordeal of your victims."

Photographers try to take a picture of Harris as he leaves court. Photograph: Bogdan Maran/AP

The Australian-born TV star and artist, a fixture of popular entertainment for six decades, was jailed for between six and 15 months for each of 12 counts of indecent assault, dating between 1968 and 1986. A jury unanimously convicted him of the charges on Monday.

Sweeney made some jail terms concurrent and some consecutive, giving a total which was less than some observers had predicted. With good behaviour he could potentially leave jail on licence in less than three years.

Harris, wearing a grey suit, white shirt and colourful striped tie, stood for the sentence but otherwise expressed no emotion. After Sweeney told the pair of dock officers flanking Harris, "Thank you, you may take him down" he was led out of the far door of the dock to custody suites. One of the officers carried Harris's prison bag, a striped leather suitcase.

He was watched in court by around a dozen relatives and supporters, including Nicholls, 50, but not his wife of 56 years, Alwen. The supporters also gave no reaction to the sentence, merely talking quietly among themselves.

Harris faces the possible loss of much of his estimated £11m fortune. He will face a claim for significant prosecution costs, to be determined at a later date, and several of his victims have begun claims for compensation.

Harris leaves his home for court by boat. Photograph: Sky TV

Peter Watt, director of national services at the NSPCC children's charity, which says it has received a number of calls from other possible victims of Harris, said the entertainer had been "opportunistic and brazen in targeting young girls and women".

Watt said: "He took advantage of their trust in him and we heard through the evidence of his courageous victims just how profoundly damaging his abuse was on them for decades after.

"This sentence reflects the seriousness of his crimes and hopefully those he preyed upon can finally find some peace. It sends a message that no one is untouchable and justice can come at any time."

The Churches Child Protection Advisory Service, an abuse charity, said the Harris case should prompt a law obliging adults to report colleagues whom they suspect of abuse. Simon Bass, chief executive of the charity, said people had been "turning a blind eye" to abuse for decades.

Harris showed no obvious emotion as the prosecution read at times distressing victim impact statements about the effect of his assaults on the four women.

The statement from Nicholls' former friend, now a woman in her 50s, explained that Harris's assaults, from the age of 13 until her late 20s, devastated her life. The woman said she was left feeling "dirty, grubby and disgusting". She became an alcoholic who suffered panic attacks and could not hold down a job or a loving relationship.

"I have never had a meaningful relationship whilst sober. I have also never been able to hold down a job," her statement said. "Rolf Harris had a hold over me that made me a quivering wreck. He made me feel like a sexual object."

Harris arrives at court with his daughter, Bindi Nicholls, earlier in the trial. Photograph: Paul Davey/Demotix/Corbis

Sweeney made it clear he found this credible, telling Harris: "I have no doubt, in view of the evidence given at trial by [the victim] and by the doctors and counsellors who treated her, that it was your crimes against her that resulted in her becoming an alcoholic for many years with all that that entailed, and that thus, as I have already touched on, you caused her severe psychological harm."

The judge noted the significant impact of two brief gropes; against an eight-year-old autograph hunter at an event in Portsmouth in 1969, and on a teenage waitress at a TV filming in Cambridge in 1978.

Of the younger victim the judge said: "In her victim impact statement [the woman] states, which I am sure is true, that you took her childhood innocence, for which she blamed herself and became an angry child and teenager, unable to express herself and unable to trust men."

Discussing the Cambridge assault, Sweeney told Harris: "You were clowning around and took advantage of the fact that she was somewhat awestruck. Again others were present. You groped her bottom, squeezing her left buttock a number of times."

On the effect on the final victim, Tonya Lee – she waived her right to anonymity after giving media interviews before the trial – the judge agreed Harris's assault of her when she was 15 and on a UK tour with her Australian youth theatre group had a significant impact but was not the sole factor in her subsequently chaotic life.

Harris had also been charged with four counts of viewing indecent images, which were to have been tried separately, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to pursue those charges in light of Monday's guilty verdicts.

As well as the civil compensation suits, Harris faces being stripped of his various honours, including a CBE, professional fellowships and honorary degrees. His home town of Bassendean in Western Australia is to remove a plaque in his honour and his former school has taken down his artwork.