British former pop star Gary Glitter, charged with committing “obscene acts with children” in Vietnam, has fallen a long way since his 1970s heyday as the leader of the glam-rock gang.
Glitter (61) was the dazzling king of the glam era, characterised by performers in sequinned dress and extreme make-up. He sold more than 20-million records and had a string of stomping hits like I’m the Leader of the Gang (I Am).
But his fading career was dealt a fatal blow when he was handed a prison sentence for downloading hardcore paedophilia during 1997.
Arrested in November trying to leave Vietnam, Glitter now faces up to seven years in jail if convicted on charges of committing obscene acts with young girls.
The flamboyant star was born Paul Francis Gadd on May 8 1944 in the town of Banbury in Oxfordshire, southern England.
Gadd had been performing on the British club circuit since the 1950s. Riding the crest of British pop music’s glam wave, he adopted the Glitter name and scored a huge hit with Rock and Roll (Parts 1 and 2).
Complete with extravagant make-up, silver outfits and high boots, showman Glitter notched up three British number-one records in the 1970s with a cheerfully anarchic brand of music based on a thumping drum beat and simple instrumental riffs.
The hits kept coming, such as Hello Hello I’m Back Again and I’m the Leader of the Gang (I Am), as glittermania swept Britain.
Tired out, he announced his “retirement” in 1976, but he soon relaunched his career and scored a 1984 hit with Another Rock and Roll Christmas.
The Timelords’ 1988 British number-one hit Doctorin’ the Tardis featured Glitter and sampled Rock and Roll, but despite pulling in crowds with his extravagant live shows, the record sales slowed.
Glitter’s surprise arrest in 1997 came after he took his computer to a store for repair. Hardcore paedophilia was spotted on the computer’s files.
He was sentenced in 1999 to four months in prison, of which he served two, after he admitted 54 charges of downloading indecent pictures from the internet.
The judge in the case said Glitter had more than 4Â 000 images of children, material “of the very, very worst possible type”. He described horrific pictures of children as young as two being tied up and tortured.
Keen to avoid the media, Glitter reportedly moved to Cuba. He later moved to Cambodia and was permanently expelled in 2002, allegedly for trawling for underage sex, although Cambodian officials did not specify his crime or file charges.
After being tracked down in Vietnam by a British newspaper that alleged that the performer was living with a 15-year-old girl, Glitter was seemingly on the move again when he was arrested trying to flee for Thailand. — AFP