Gary Glitter banned from taking foreign holiday

Published on Wednesday 23 September 2009 17:47

PAEDOPHILE Gary Glitter was blocked by the courts today from travelling to Europe for a two-week holiday.

The former 1970s glam-rock star, real name Paul Gadd, wanted permission to travel to the south of France on Friday.

But Metropolitan Police detectives were granted a six-month foreign travel ban after he notified them of his plans.

Speaking at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court today, District Judge Timothy Workman said Gadd, 65, could pose a risk to children overseas.

He referred to a report prepared by a psychologist who spoke to Gadd as he spent nearly three years in a Vietnam prison for molesting two girls aged 10 and 11.

The judge said: "I am satisfied from Dr Sullivan's evidence that the risk of sexual offences against children would increase if he was permitted to travel overseas.

"While his desire to leave the UK may have reduced in the last month, he has on numerous occasions in the last year made it clear it is his intention to leave the UK permanently.

"If he were to do so not having had any treatment, there would be a substantial risk he would avoid sexual monitoring regimes and could move easily and without detection around the European Union.

"Visiting France near the Spanish border away from the monitoring regime and the possibility of intrusive press interest would prove a very powerful incentive not to return.

"In the absence of any treatment, the risks to children would be enhanced.

"While I do not exclude the possibility of such holidays being permitted in years to come, I am satisfied that, at the present time, the defendant's behaviour, exhibited in his desire to live abroad and not to undertake any treatment, is such that it makes it necessary to make an order to protect children from serious sexual offences from the defendant."