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Gary Glitter accused of treating victims with contempt ahead of parole hearing

The 79-year-old is currently serving a 16-year jail sentence for abusing three girls between 1975 and 1980.

Margaret Davis
Monday 22 January 2024 10:47 EST
A parole hearing for Gary Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, is to begin later this week (Anthony Devlin/PA)
A parole hearing for Gary Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, is to begin later this week (Anthony Devlin/PA) (PA Archive)

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Gary Glitter has been accused of a “total lack of remorse” towards his victims ahead of a parole hearing due to start later this week.

Lawyers for a woman who was abused by the disgraced performer when she was 12 years old have told the Parole Board that he shows contempt for his victims.

The woman is suing Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, following his 2015 conviction for abusing her and two other young victims between 1975 and 1980.

Richard Scorer, a lawyer from Slater and Gordon who represents her, said: “Our client has brought a claim for damages against Gadd for the appalling sexual assaults which he committed on her when she was 12 years old.

“This case is proceeding through the High Court.

I hope the board take this matter very seriously as it is yet more evidence of Gadd’s lack of remorse and contempt for his victims

Lawyer Richard Scorer

“Throughout the case Gadd has refused to co-operate at all and has ignored court orders, deliberately making the process more stressful and traumatic for our client.

“This behaviour demonstrates Gadd’s total lack of remorse.

“We have made the Parole Board aware of his behaviour and they have confirmed that this information will be included in a report to the Parole Board panel ahead of the hearing.

“I hope the board take this matter very seriously as it is yet more evidence of Gadd’s lack of remorse, and contempt for his victims.”

Gadd, 79, was jailed for 16 years in 2015 for sexually abusing three schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980. His sentence expires in February 2031.

He was automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, in February last year after serving half of his 16-year fixed-term determinate sentence.

Less than six weeks after walking free, he was taken back to prison for breaching his licence conditions by allegedly viewing downloaded images of children.

In October an application to have this month’s parole hearing in public was rejected, on the grounds that it was too difficult to contact all his victims.

Glitter’s fall from grace began in the late 1990s when he was jailed for possessing thousands of child abuse images and 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 and spent two and a half years in jail.

The offences for which he was jailed in 2015 came to light as part of Operation Yewtree, the Metropolitan Police investigation launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

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