Gary Glitter back in prison amid ‘dark web’ allegations

Disgraced pop star Gary Glitter has been recalled to prison after breaching his licence conditions.

The 78-year-old was released from HMP The Verne, a category C jail in Dorset, just over a month ago, after serving half of his 16-year prison sentence for sexually abusing three schoolgirls.

Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, was “filmed apparently discussing the sinister dark web – an online realm used by paedophiles as it is harder to monitor or track users”, said The Telegraph.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“We set tough licence conditions,” said a Probation Service spokesperson. “When offenders breach them, we don't hesitate to return them to custody.”

The musician was jailed in 2015 for attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual intercourse with a girl under 13 in the 1970s and 1980s. He was “at the height of his fame” when he attacked two girls, aged 12 and 13, after inviting them backstage to his dressing room and “isolating them from their mothers“, said Bristol Live. His third victim was under ten years old when he crept into her bed and attempted to rape her.

His crimes came to light decades later when Glitter “became the first person to be arrested under Operation Yewtree”, the investigation launched by the Metropolitan Police following the Jimmy Savile scandal, said The Guardian.

Glitter was first jailed in 1999 for four months after confessing to having a collection of thousands of child abuse images. “A member of staff spotted the material on Glitter’s computer, in for repair at PC World in Bristol,” the BBC reported at the time.

He was later expelled from Cambodia for sex crime allegations, before spending two-and-a-half years in a Vietnamese prison for sexually abusing two young girls.