Predator Rolf Harris’s lack of remorse for his victims and his actions reveal a personality driven by selfishness and ego, a child protection advocate says.

The 84-year-old has gone from icon to inmate for a string of indecent assaults against four young girls in the UK between 1968 and 1986.

He was sentenced in a London court on Friday to five years and nine months behind bars.

The entertainer pleaded his innocence to the end, which founder of child advocacy group Bravehearts Hetty Johnston expected.

She said it was probably one of the rare circumstances where Harris revealed his true personality.

“The remorse would be a lie anyway,” Ms Johnston said.

“It’s a very, very selfish act to hurt a child. You can’t do it unless you have a lack of empathy.

“He’s ignorant, self-absorbed and an egomaniac.

“I think his victims feel vindicated anyway. I don’t think they expected remorse from a man like him.”

Former Hey Dad! star and Bravehearts ambassador Sarah Monahan weighed in on social media, saying the sentence “seems very light”.

“It saddens me you get more time for money offenses than you do for crimes against children,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

She said the parallels between the Harris sentencing and that of Australian actor Robert Hughes – her on-screen father, who was jailed in May for indecently or sexually assaulting her and three other young girls during the 1980s and 1990s – “astound me”.

“It’s a pity courts take the age of the offender into consideration, when that person didn’t care about the age of the victim,” she added on Twitter.