Australian entertainer Rolf Harris was charged with 13 child sex offences on Thursday (August 29), the latest in a series of high-profile celebrities from the 1970s and 1980s to be accused by a massive police investigation into child abuse.

Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Harris, 83, would be charged with 9 counts of indecent assault related to two girls aged 14 and 15 in the 1980s and four offences of making indecent images of a child last year.

Alison Saunders, chief crown prosecutor for CPS London, said the charges were part of a police investigation codenamed Operation Yewtree that was sparked by a major inquiry into the late BBC TV host Jimmy Savile.

"We have determined that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and that a prosecution is in the public interest," Saunders said in a statement.

Mr Harris has been a fixture on British TV screens for more than 40 years, having arrived in the UK from his native Australia in 1952.

He has been honoured in the UK three times, first as a Member of the British Empire in 1968 (MBE), then an OBE in 1977 and in 2006 he was advanced to a CBE.

Harris will appear in court in London on September 23rd.

Read more: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/operation-yewtree-rolf-harris-13-child-sex-502317