Paedophile Gary Glitter released from prison in the UK
London: British pop paedophile Gary Glitter has been freed from prison after serving eight years of his sentence for sexually abusing three young schoolgirls.
The former pop star, now 79, was jailed in 2015, but it reported to have walked free from Dorset’s HMP The Verne on Friday morning (local time).
Gary Glitter, photographed outside a court in Ba Ria, Vung Tau, Vietnam, in March, 2006.Credit:AP
Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, found fame in the 1970s as part of the glam rock scene, scoring No.1 hits with I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am), I Love You Love Me Love and Always Yours.
He was freed halfway through a fixed-term determinate sentence, the Press Associated reported.
Glitter’s fall from grace began almost 25 years ago after he admitted to possessing 4000 child pornography images; he was jailed for four months in 1999.
In 2002, he was expelled from Cambodia amid reports of sex crime allegations, and in March 2006 he was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam, where he spent two-and-a-half years in jail.
Several historical allegations only came to light nearly 40 years later when Glitter became the first person to be arrested under Operation Yewtree, the investigation launched by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
He was sentenced in 2015 for attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one of having sex with a girl under 13. One victim was less than 10 years old when he crept into her bed and tried to rape her in 1975.
Glitter denied allegations against him, but was found guilty after a trial lasting three weeks.
The court heard Glitter preyed on his vulnerable victims whose claims he thought would not be believed because of his celebrity, prosecutors said. He separated them from their mothers by taking them backstage to his dressing room at one of his shows.
Detective Chief Inspector Michael Orchard, from Operation Yewtree, said Glitter was a “habitual sexual predator who took advantage of the star status afforded to him”.
News that Glitter would be released early from prison emerged in February last year. An offender who is convicted of a sexual offence is released on a strict licence.
The terms of the licence can include staying in an approved premise, obeying a curfew and having GPS tagging, not having unsupervised contact with children and restrictions on internet usage.
Victims’ families can also be protected from unwanted contact through exclusion zones being set up. If offenders breach the conditions, the Probation Service can recall them to prison.
Most Viewed in World
From our partners
Source: Read Full Article