Pedophile Former Pop Star Sent Back to Prison

UPDATE Mar 13, 2023 6:30 PM CDT

Freedom didn't last long for Paul Gadd, the British sex offender better known as Gary Glitter. The 79-year-old former pop star was recalled to prison on Monday, less than six weeks after he was automatically freed halfway through a 16-year sentence for abusing young girls in the 1970s, the Telegraph reports. He was recalled after video surfaced of him using a smartphone and asking how to access the "dark web." Official said they found material on his phone that breached his strict release conditions, though it wasn't illegal. " Protecting the public is our number one priority," a probation service spokesman said. "That’s why we set tough licence conditions and when offenders breach them, we don’t hesitate to return them to custody."

Feb 3, 2023 7:14 AM CST

Notorious sex offender Paul Gadd was released from a British prison Friday after serving eight years for sexually abusing children at the height of his fame as glam rock star Gary Glitter. Gadd, 79, was automatically freed halfway through a 16-year sentence he received in 2015 after he was convicted of one count of attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault, and one count of sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 13, the Guardian reports. The latter count would now be considered rape of a child, which could have resulted in a life sentence, but the sentencing judge was restricted to the penalties that existed when the crimes took place in the 1970s.

Gadd was convicted of attacking two girls, ages 12 and 13, after he invited them backstage. The third victim was under 10 when he tried to rape her. "It is difficult to overstate the depravity of this dreadful behavior," Judge Alistair McCreath said in 2015. "You did all of them real and lasting damage and you did so for no other reason than to obtain sexual gratification for yourself of a wholly improper kind." Gadd will be monitored by police and probation authorities and he will be returned to prison if he breaches the strict release conditions, the Daily Mail reports. He will be required to notify authorities if he plans to travel overseas—and if he enters a relationship with somebody who has children under 18.

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Gadd was the first person arrested for historical sex offenses under Operation Yewtree, which was launched in 2012 after the crimes of former BBC children's host Jimmy Savile were exposed, the BBC reports. But his downfall began much earlier: Gadd was jailed in the UK in 1999 after thousands of images of child sexual abuse were found on his computer. After his release, he was kicked out of Cambodia in 2002 amid child sex abuse allegations and was imprisoned in Vietnam for two and a half years after he was convicted of molesting two girls. (More Gary Glitter stories.)