Gary Glitter's parole hearing to be held in private over fears of identifying child sexual abuse victims
9 October 2023, 19:25
Gary Glitter's application to have his parole hearing held in public has been rejected over fears of 're-traumatising' and exposing the identities of his victims.
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The disgraced star, who was jailed for child sexual abuse offences, is due to be considered for release in January 2024.
But his parole hearing will take place in private due to the difficulties of contacting all his victims and exposing their identities.
Glitter, 79, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was jailed in 2015 for sexually abusing three schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980.
In February, he was automatically released from HMP The Verne, which is a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, after serving half of his fixed 16-year determinate sentence.
Less than six weeks after being released, he was imprisoned in March after breaching his licence conditions by allegedly viewing downloaded images of children.
There had been calls for Glitter’s parole hearing to take place in public, with lawyers for one of his victims reportedly applying for open proceedings.
The Parole Board said it would consider arranging for victims to view the private hearing.
Chairwoman Caroline Corby said the issue of a public hearing would be identifying the children in the downloaded images, who are potential victims of sexual offences and have the right to lifelong anonymity.
It is also unknown whether all the victims Glitter abused supported the application for the hearing to take place in public.
Ms Corby said: "The panel will need to consider the circumstances of the recall and whether the images that Mr Gadd allegedly downloaded are indicative of a continuing sexual interest in children.
"The children in these images are potentially victims and any discussion in a public setting could have the potential to identify them.
"It is unknown whether all victims of the index offences wish for the hearing to be held in public and there is a risk that if this hearing were held in public, it could re-traumatise them."
Ms Corby also mentioned that there are concerns over sensitive operational information linked to Glitter’s recall to prison being revealed publicly.
Read more: What were the probation service actually doing while Gary Glitter was free from prison?
She concluded: "It follows that whereas I have deep sympathy for Mr Gadd's victims, I do not grant the application for the hearing to be held in public."
Glitter fell from grace in the late 1990s when he was jailed for having thousands of child abuse images.
As a result, he was jailed for four months in 1999.
In 2002, he was expelled from Cambodia amid reports of sex crimes.
Four years later, in March, he was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam and was jailed for two and a half years.
He was jailed in 2015 as well after the reasons came to light as part of Operation Yewtree, which the Metropolitan Police launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
