Gary Glitter: disgraced former pop star and paedophile loses parole bid to be freed from jail

Disgraced paedophile popstar Gary Glitter has lost a bid in front of the Parole Board to be released from jail.

The decision published by the Parole Board read: “After considering the circumstances of his offending, the lack of progress made while in custody and on licence, and the other evidence presented at the hearing, the panel was not satisfied that release at this point would be safe for the protection of the public. Rather, the panel considered that Mr Gadd [Glitter] was appropriately located in custody where outstanding levels of risk could be addressed.”

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was jailed for 16 years in 2015 after he was found guilty of sexually abusing three teenage girls between 1975 and 1980. He was automatically released from HMP The Verne in February 2023 after serving half of his fixed-term determinate sentence.

However, Glitter was jailed once again less than six weeks after he was released after he breached the conditions of his release. He breached the terms after allegedly viewing downloaded images of children.

His parole hearing took place behind closed doors two weeks ago. A request for a public hearing was refused on the grounds that all of Glitter's victims would be too difficult to contact.

Alongside his conviction for the three schoolgirls he sexually abused, Glitter has comitted a series of child sex crimes over the years. He was jailed in the 1990s after being found to possess thousands of child abuse images, and in 2002 he was expelled from Cambodia after allegations of sex crimes. Glitter was also jailed for two-and-a-half years in March 2006 after being found guilty of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam.