Singer Gary Glitter was freed from a prison in southwest England Friday after serving an eight-year prison sentence for attempted rape, indecent assault and sexual intercourse with a girl under age 13.
The 79-year-old glam-rock star was convicted in 2015 for crimes against three girls in the 1970s. His victims were 10, 12 and 13 years old. He served half his 16-year sentence and will be “closely monitored by the police and Probation Service” the U.K.s Ministry of Justice said.
Glitter, born Paul Francis Gadd, is best known in the U.S. for the stadium anthem “Rock & Roll Part 2,” which was featured in the 2019 film “Joker.” He had several hits overseas.
In 1999, Glitter was sentenced to four months in a British prison for downloading child pornography. After serving his time, the disgraced musician fled the country, spending time in Spain, Cuba, Cambodia and Vietnam, from which he was deported after serving a nearly three year sentence for 2005 sex crimes involving two young girls. Glitter maintains he did nothing wrong.
“He looked like a father figure — I didn’t expect that he would do these things, these terrible things,” one of his Vietnamese victims told the BBC in 2015. “Please do something so he doesn’t commit these crimes again,”
His victims in Vietnam were 11 and 12.
One woman Glitter is accused of harming when she was a girl told The Telegraph she never recovered from her experience with the singer.
“I feel as if I’ve been let down by the justice system and that I’ve been attacked by Glitter again,” she said of his release.
It isn’t uncommon for sex offenders in England to serve half their sentence at home on probation, according to the Associated Press.
A lawyer representing another of Glitter’s victims told the Guardian the singer’s early release is an injustice that “devalues” the victim’s suffering.
“The abuse, including repeated rapes which our client suffered from the age of 12, have left her with a life sentence,” said attorney Richard Scorer.
The arrest leading to Glitter’s recent incarceration stemmed from 2012’s Operation Yewtree, which focused largely on the alleged misdeeds of British television host Jimmy Savile, who died in 2011. Investigators reportedly believe he may have preyed on roughly 500 young people, the Guardian said. He was never convicted of a sex crime.
Saville defended Glitter in a 2009 interview.
“Whether it was right or wrong is, of course, it’s up to him as a person,” he said of the singer’s penchant for child pornography.
With News Wire Services
