Disgraced singer Gary Glitter will not be released from prison, the Parole Board has said.
The 79-year-old was recalled to jail less than six weeks after he was released halfway through his 16-year sentence in February last year for breaching his licence conditions by allegedly viewing downloaded images of children.
A parole hearing to decide whether he should be freed again was held behind closed doors two weeks ago after a request for it to take place in public was turned down on the grounds that it was too difficult to contact all his victims.
A Parole Board panel decided it was “not satisfied that release at this point would be safe for the protection of the public”, it was announced today.
Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was jailed in 2015 for sexually abusing three schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980.
He attacked two girls, aged 12 and 13, after inviting them backstage to his dressing room and isolating them from their mothers.
In 1975, the singer crept into the bed of his third victim – a girl who was aged under 10 at the time – in an attempt to rape her.
The allegations came to light when he 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 automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, last year after serving half of his 16-year fixed-term determinate sentence.
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The panel reviewing his case found the decision to recall him to prison “was justified” and found “on the evidence that at the time of the offending, and while he was on licence, Mr Gadd had a sexual interest in underage girls”.
“There was also concern about the lack of victim empathy which he had continued to show,” a summary of the decision said.
While his behaviour in prison had been generally good, he had not taken part in any programmes to address his offending because he continues to deny having a sexual interest in children, it added.
Richard Scorer, a lawyer who represents one of Glitter’s victims, said the Parole Board made the “right decision” because he “remains a risk to children and has never shown any remorse”.
“Releasing him would have been utterly wrong and we are glad the parole board has done the right thing,” he said.
“We only hope that Glitter will now serve this full sentence – it is completely unfair that our client has to endure this Glitter parole circus over and over again.”
The glam rocker had a string of chart hits in the 1970s, but his fall from grace began in the late 1990s when he was jailed for possessing thousands of child abuse images.
He was expelled from Cambodia in 2002 amid reports of sex crime allegations and was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam in 2006, for which he spent two and a half years in jail.
Source : Sky News
