Rolf Harris hid his dark side for years. He should be sentenced by today's laws

Yet the likelihood is that when he is sentenced he will be jailed only for a few years.

He must face up to the very real prospect that he will die in prison. But this is due to his advancing years more than the strength of the justice system.

Harris will be sentenced using the laws that were in force at the time he committed his crimes, dating back the best part of five decades.

In the intervening years, this is a country that has woken up to sexual abuse and started to treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

During that time, Harris lived as a Jekyll and Hyde character.

In public he was a national treasure, a man so beloved by the British establishment that he was invited to paint the Queen's portrait and perform at her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Behind closed doors he was a man who a court has found had abused four women, most while they were under age.

While Rolf Harris was presenting television programmes and delighting children with his cartoon drawing, his victims were suffering in silence.

They will have known all about the other side of a man who could present Animal Hospital and weep with emotion about the health of an injured pet, but did not feel they could come forward.

In the intervening decades, Harris lived in the public eye in the belief that what he had done would never come to light.

He must now pay the price for that undeserved freedom.

The law says otherwise. It insists that changes must not be applied retrospectively.

Were Rolf Harris someone who had been doing something that was once legal, only for the the rules to have been amended, this would seem perfectly reasonable.

But what he has been convicted of was always wrong. It is only that the country has begun to deal with some offences in a more appropriate way that has changed.

As a result, he should be facing up to many, many years behind bars.

Instead, the chances are that he may well walk free before he passes away.

His victims, however, have already lived with the consequences of his actions for decades.

If Britain is truly serious about ensuring that no-one else ever suffers in silence the way the victims of Rolf Harris and others have done, we must be prepared to give punishments that fit the crime.

More money is not the cure for the NHS

Forgive us if we take a pinch of salt with the results of a survey suggesting most people would willingly pay more to safeguard the NHS.

The greatest institution this country has ever produced, or indeed ever will, is heading for a financial crisis.

It is easy, therefore, on paper to say that we would want to do all we could to protect it.

The reality is that most people would rather see it work better with the considerable resources it already receives.

Every week there are stories about a lack of joined-up thinking, of different arms of the NHS spending money that others could have used more effectively – agency nurses as opposed to more training, cosmetic surgery as opposed to life-saving cancer drugs and so on.

The answer is not more cash, but an overhaul to make the NHS fit for the 21st century while staying true to its founding principles.

Any attempt to reform the health service is met with howls of derision from many supporters. But it would be a far greater travesty to allow it to fall into a situation where it is no longer free at the point of use.

Throwing money at it solves nothing.