“We're pleased that it's a success for the victims,” she told the BBC's Today program. “We should make sure we don't triumphalise in these instances because what it means is that abuse took place.”

But it was a moment of redemption for prosecutors and for police, who had been under fire over the apparent overreach of Operation Yewtree, set up after the Jimmy Savile scandal came to light in October 2012. Of the 17 people arrested so far by Yewtree, Harris is only the second conviction.

Eight of those arrested were subsequently told there would be no official charges laid. DJ Dave Lee Travis was found not guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault, though he faces a retrial on two further counts. Three more, including Gary Glitter, have been charged and are awaiting trial, and one (BBC driver David Smith) was charged and then committed suicide.

The rest are on bail, waiting for police to finish investigating allegations against them.

Before Harris, only celebrity agent Max Clifford had been found guilty of any offence, 20 months after Yewtree began investigating a flood of tip-offs that followed the Savile bombshell. And before the Clifford conviction in late April, police were under substantial pressure to take a step back.

In non-Yewtree cases, Coronation Street stars William Roache,Michael Le Vell and Andrew Lancel were all cleared of sex abuse charges.

MP Nigel Evans, cleared in April of rape and sexual assault charges, accused prosecutors of “bundling” charges together to make it “look like there was a stronger case”. He called for the Crown Prosecution Service to review its practices, and Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, QC, told the CPS to “keep a cool head” on its approach to historical abuse cases.

Yewtree was being dubbed a “witch hunt” over minor sexual harassment from a different era.

TV presenter Jim Davidson, who endured a nightmare seven months on bail over allegations of sexual assault before prosecutors decided there was “insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction”, estimated last month that Yewtree had cost his career half-a-million pounds, hurt his marriage and left him with something like post-traumatic stress disorder.

Freddie Starr, who spent 18 months on bail before learning he would not be prosecuted, said he had lost faith in the justice system – and his wife said Starr was too scared at one point even to cuddle his daughter. BBC producer Wilfred De'Ath said he was indignant and angry after the “unpleasant experience” of four months under investigation.

But the pendulum began to swing back with the trial and conviction of Max Clifford. He was found guilty of eight charges of indecent assault against women and girls as young as 15, and sentenced to eight years' jail.

After the Harris verdict, the praise for police and prosecutors became louder. The Telegraph's Martin Evans wrote that it was a “vindication” of Yewtree, as did Guardian columnist Joan Smith, who said it was “a reminder that Yewtree is not just a fishing expedition” and “undeniably a blow against impunity for sex offenders".

The Harris trial also had a practical effect: police said more women had come forward with allegations against him. Apart from Harris, the Daily Star reported Yewtree were preparing cases “against two high-profile names”, including “one of the world's biggest music stars” accused of abusing a 10-year-old boy.

Independently, there are growing calls for an official inquiry into allegations of a paedophile ring at Westminster in the 1970s and 80s.

Paedophilia is once again the UK's “chosen national nightmare” – as it was dubbed by journalist Andrew O'Hagan in 2012 in the London Review of Books.

“There's something creepy about British light entertainment and there always has been,” O'Hagan wrote.