Former 70’s glam rock singer Gary Glitter was jailed for 16 years today at Southwark Crown Court for a string of historic sex attacks against three young girls.
Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, was sentenced for attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one of having sex with a girl under 13 and was the first person to be arrested as part of operation yewtree.
At the sentencing today, Judge Alistair McCreath told him his crimes were “truly appalling” and he could find “no real evidence” that Gadd had atoned for his crimes.
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The shameful singer used his stardom to prey on the girls wowing them with his wealth and celebrity before using them for his own sexual gratification in the 1970s and 1980s.
The BBC report:
Gadd, from Marylebone, central London, had denied the allegations against him but was found guilty at the end of a three-week-long trial earlier this month.
He had been at the height of his fame when he attacked two girls aged 12 and 13 after inviting them backstage to his dressing room.
His youngest victim had been less than 10 years old when he crept into her bed and tried to rape her in 1975.
Judge McCreath described Gadd’s abuse of a girl under 10 as “appalling” and said: “It is difficult to overstate the depravity of this dreadful behaviour.”
He noted that in 2011 Gadd sought professional help to understand his sexual behaviour but said: “Whatever changes may have been effected in you by this treatment, they did not include any admission at all on your part of the wrong that you had done.”
The allegations against Gadd came to light only years later when he became the first person to be arrested under Operation Yewtree – the investigation launched by the Met in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Scotland Yard confirmed that it had received other information in light of Gadd’s conviction, and that it is “currently being assessed”.
Det Ch Insp Michael Orchard, from Operation Yewtree, said Gadd was a “habitual sexual predator who took advantage of the star status afforded to him”.
He added: “His lack of remorse and defence that the victims were lying make his crimes all the more indefensible.”
Mark Castle, chief executive of charity Victim Support, said: “This prison sentence is testament to the courage Glitter’s victims showed in reporting their ordeal and bravely confronting this serial paedophile in court.”
