The TV presenter Vanessa Feltz has discussed how she was groped by the sex offender and disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris when she interviewed him for live TV.

It comes after the news that the 93-year-old died yesterday (Tuesday, May 23) following a long illness.

The Australian-born TV presenter was a family favourite for decades before being convicted of a string of indecent assaults.

These included one on an eight-year-old autograph hunter, two on girls in their early teens and a catalogue of abuse against his daughter’s friend over 16 years.

After the news of his death was announced, TalkTV's Vanessa discussed the harrowing moment as she appeared on her Drivetime show on Tuesday, as reported by The Mirror.

She said Harris groped her when she was interviewing him when she was fronting The Big Breakfast in 1996.

'I didn't know what to do'

A picture of Vanessa sitting on a bed on the set of the show next to Harris was shown on screen during her TalkTV segment.

Vanessa told fellow TalkTV presenter Kevin O'Sullivan: "If you look at the picture, you will see that I’m wearing a full-length beaded gown. I was always in full evening dress in the morning on the bed.

"This was the whole idea of it and the noise was my dress being crunched between Rolf’s fingers as he started at my ankles and began to bring the dress further and further and further up my legs."

She went on to explain that she used a blue cushion to create a barrier between the two but he "completely ignored it".

Vanessa said she was put in a very difficult situation because of it being on live TV and she was unsure what action to take.

She added: "I didn't know what to do because I knew that I couldn't say, 'Get your hand off my leg' or 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' or 'Get off me' and I also couldn't jump off the bed because I was all mic-ed up and it's a live program. I didn't know what to do at all.

"I tried, as you can see, to put the cushion between, that was no good. I couldn't move any further away because you can see I would’ve fallen off the edge of the bed… his hand meanwhile was getting closer and closer and closer and closer and closer. And then it got to the edge of my pants, my knickers, or whatever. My lingerie, and I knew, that if I didn’t do something immediately, it was going to be a proper full-on assault.

"So I did what you're never allowed to do as a presenter, which I wouldn't be allowed to do on this show, which is thrown to a break when I want to, rather than waiting for the director to tell me a break’s coming up."