Jimmy Savile investigation: Detectives arrest Gary Glitter over sex abuse claim

By ALASTAIR DALTON
Published on 29/10/2012 15:46

DISGRACED former pop star Gary Glitter was released on bail last night after being arrested in connection with sex crimes relating to the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Glitter, 68, who has been previously jailed for child sex offences, was taken by police from his house in central London at 7:15am yesterday.

He was released from Charing Cross police station shortly before 5pm last night and bailed to return there in mid-December, pending further inquiries.

He is the first person to be arrested since the Savile scandal broke last month.

One woman has claimed she saw Glitter having sex with an underage girl in Savile’s BBC dressing room, while Savile abused another girl.

Glitter – born Paul Gadd – appeared on Savile’s BBC1 shows Clunk Click and Jim’ll Fix It.

He was jailed for four months in the UK in 1999 for downloading child pornography and later imprisoned for child sex offences in Vietnam in 2006. He returned to the UK in 2008.

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: “Officers working on Operation Yewtree have arrested a man in his 60s in connection with the investigation.

“The man, from London, was arrested at approximately 7:15am on suspicion of sexual offences, and has been taken into custody.

“The individual falls under the strand of the investigation we have termed ‘Savile and others’.”

The arrest came as Savile’s family continued to try to come to terms with revelations about the entertainer on the first anniversary of his death today.

Caroline Robinson, 49, Savile’s great niece, said yesterday he had abused her as a teenager in the knowledge of other family members. She has previously said the family kept quiet for fear of losing the gifts Savile lavished on them, including houses and holidays.

Scotland Yard detectives are dealing with about 300 alleged victims and are following more than 400 lines of inquiry.

Police say the majority of cases related to Savile alone and some involved him and other, unidentified, suspects.

In addition, some potential victims who reported abuse by Savile also told police about separate allegations against unidentified men that did not involve him.

BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten yesterday vowed to find the truth about the scandal, stressing that there would be “no covering our backs”.

He said the corporation’s reputation was on the line, suggesting people knew about Savile’s activities but chose not to act.

He said: “Can it really be the case that no one knew what he was doing? Did some turn a blind eye to criminality? Did some prefer not to follow up their suspicions because of this criminal’s popularity and place in the schedules?

“Were reports of criminality put aside or buried?

“Even those of us who were not there at the time are inheritors of the shame.”

Lord Patten added: “The BBC must tell the truth and face up to the truth about itself, however terrible.”

He also apologised “unreservedly” to the abused women who spoke to the BBC’s Newsnight programme, but did not have their stories told when its report was axed.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said the BBC must be far less secretive in the wake of the Savile sex abuse scandal.

He said the BBC had to be far more transparent when it came to handling freedom of information requests and publishing its expenditure online.

“I think it’s in all our interests for the BBC to be held in the highest esteem that it deserves. The problem at the heart of the BBC is that the organisation is too

secretive,” he said.

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman said there needed to be an over-arching, independent inquiry into the Savile case.

She said too often the criminal justice system gave victims the impression they would not be believed if they came forward with allegations of sexual abuse.

She said: “There are big lessons to be learned here, not just for the BBC, although the epicentre of it was at the BBC, because when something like this comes out, there is an assumption, ‘How could we have gone astray from our normal policy that protecting vulnerable children must take priority over the rights of protecting adults?’

“That is not actually the situation, because that is always under challenge. Just this month the law has been changed so if there is an allegation of a sex offence against a teacher, the teacher has anonymity right up until the moment of charge.”

However, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said he was not convinced by the case for an immediate judge-led inquiry of the kind Ms Harman has proposed. He said: “There is always a

danger, if you set up a very substantial inquiry process of that kind, that it takes much longer to get to the truth.

“What should be happening right now, first and foremost – and clearly is happening with the police – is we should be looking to see who is still around who was involved, and criminal proceedings should follow if people were guilty of participating in these offences alongside Jimmy Savile. That is of paramount importance.”