London -
Gary Glitter is likely to die behind bars after being convicted on Thursday of sex attacks on three schoolgirls.
The 70-year-old former glam rocker’s final downfall came amid outrage that he was granted legal aid to fight the case, despite being wealthy enough to rent a £2 million London home and receiving an estimated £300 000 a year in royalties.
Child abuse charities said it was a “disgrace” that the prolific sex offender was able to plead poverty and use tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to hire a top QC.
But on Thursday a jury took just two days to convict him 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 at the height of his fame in the 1970s and 1980s.
He attacked two girls, aged 12 and 13, after inviting them backstage to his dressing room and hotel suites, where the champagne flowed before he forced them to have sex with him or molested them when their mothers left.
Glitter’s youngest victim was only eight when he crept into her bed and tried to rape her in 1975.
Now it can be revealed that Glitter faces a fresh police quiz over new allegations.
A source close to the inquiry said police were “assessing new information” which emerged during the trial.
He is likely to be questioned about an alleged attack on a 12-year-old girl in a hotel bath in 1977 after a key witness came forward during the case.
Anne Glover, a chambermaid working at the Holiday Inn in Leicester, said she walked in on Glitter in the bath with a similar-aged girl the same year.
She told police: “I immediately recognised Gary Glitter as I had seen him thousands of times on the telly.”
She reported to her supervisor that the girl looked 12, only to be told: “Well, you know what they’re like.”
Miss Glover’s evidence was not presented to the jury after objections from Glitter’s barrister.
Glitter - real name Paul Gadd - was warned he could be jailed for life after being convicted of having sex with a girl under 13.
Attempted rape and indecent assault carry maximum sentences of seven and five years respectively under laws in force at the times the offences occurred.
Judge Alistair McCreath said he will carefully consider the “totality” of Glitter’s crimes, then remanded him in custody.
Dressed in a fur jacket and dark glasses, Glitter handed his expensive watch and phone to his lawyer and blew a kiss to the public gallery before being led to the cells.
His three victims only went to police in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Now it can be revealed that Glitter was accused of raping a girl under 14 in Savile’s dressing room at BBC Television Centre in the 1970s.
Karin Ward, a former pupil of Duncroft boarding school for emotionally disturbed children in Surrey, told an ITV documentary on Savile: “I saw Gary Glitter have sex with a girl in Jimmy Savile’s dressing room.
“Jimmy Savile had a girl on his lap and he had his hand up her skirt.
“The girl Gary Glitter was having sex with also came from Duncroft. I think she might have been not quite 14.”
On Thursday it emerged that fans were invited to Glitter’s home, which he made into a “magical place” for girls with a room stacked full of sweets, a swimming pool and ponies to pet.
His fall from grace came in 1997 when he took his computer into PC World in Bristol, where technicians discovered 4 000 images of child porn.
Jurors were told he had pleaded guilty in 1999 to 54 charges of downloading child porn.
During that trial Glitter wept as he denied any sexual interest in children, but the sickening images from Japanese websites included children as young as two being tortured, tied up, gagged, blindfolded and savagely beaten.
He was also accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old fan, who claimed he subjected her to a series of humiliating sex acts, making her call him “daddy” and dress in a school uniform during their 12-year relationship.
But a jury at Bristol Crown Court acquitted Glitter in 1999 after a magistrate ruled that other evidence of the attempted rape on the eight-year-old girl in 1975 could not be presented to the jury because of the delay in the victim coming forward.
That decision was overturned at the High Court last September when the victim came forward again along with two other women following the exposure of Savile.
Following his conviction for child pornography, Glitter was thrown out of Cambodia for suspected child abuse in 2002 before being locked up for three years in Vietnam for lewd acts against two girls aged ten and 11.
Following his release in August 2008, he returned to the UK after being refused entry to 19 countries and in 2012 he was the first to be arrested under Operation Yewtree - the probe arising from the Savile scandal.
On Thursday Detective Chief Inspector Michael Orchard, from the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command, said: “Paul Gadd has shown himself to be a habitual sexual predator, who took advantage of the star status afforded to him by targeting young girls who trusted him and were in awe of his fame.
“His lack of remorse and defence that the victims were lying make his crimes all the more indefensible.” Glitter will be sentenced on February 27.
Daily Mail