Child molester Glitter gets sentence cut in amnesty

Published on Wednesday 7 February 2007 14:23

GARY GLITTER'S sentence for child-molesting was reduced by a Vietnamese court today.

The reduction cuts the former glam rocker's three-year jail term by three months as part of a nationwide Lunar New Year prison amnesty.

Glitter, convicted of molesting two Vietnamese girls, is now due for release in August 2008.

Vietnam traditionally reduces the sentences of inmates with good prison records just before Tet, as the Lunar New Year is known in Vietnam.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was convicted in March 2006 of committing obscene acts with children.

The incidents involved two girls, ages ten and 11, from the southern coastal city of Vung Tau.

He has been in jail since November 2005.

Christine Beddoe, director of Ecpat UK, the British arm of the international campaign to End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes, said: "We are disappointed to hear of a reduction. Ecpat UK fully believes that Paul Gadd should serve the fullest sentence in order to protect children in Vietnam and the rest of the world.

"We believe that the British Government must request his deportation at the end of his sentence and immediate return to the UK, and he should be put on the Sex Offenders' Register."