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04
May 2006
Gary
Glitter Denies Abusing
Girls
Disgraced
pop star
Gary
Glitter
has denied ever abusing
underage girls and
blamed the UK media for
his downfall.
In
his first interview
since he was convicted
of child sex abuse in
March 2006, he admitted
letting a girl into his
bed but said he knew
"the line to
cross".
Glitter,
whose real name is Paul
Gadd, was jailed for
three years in Vietnam
for molesting two girls
aged 11 and
12.
He
insisted he was
confident of winning his
appeal, set
provisionally for 19
May, 2006 in Ho Chi Minh
City.
The
judge at his trial
condemned his crimes in
detail, but Glitter said
he had not seen any
evidence to support this
and denied he had done
anything
wrong.
Asked
if he had ever slept
with an underage girl,
he said: "Not to my
knowledge that she's
been underage. No, I
have not. I know the
line to
cross."
But
when asked if he was
sure, he hesitated
before replying: "It was
only recently that I
found out that underage
is 18 in the country,
OK, but I don't believe
that I slept with anyone
under 18."
He
also drew a distinction
between having sex and
sleeping with
girls.
When
asked if sleeping with
an 11-year-old girl was
alright, Glitter said:
"I'm a father, so from
time to time these
things
happen.
"Your
daughter will come into
your bed in the night
because she's scared or
something like that.
This happened in this
case over here. She was
scared of ghosts, so
under pressure I said
OK."
Christine
Beddoe, director of
End
Child Prostitution,
Pornography and
Trafficking
(Ecpat), said the
paedophile was trying to
"minimise what he has
done" but the girls he
had molested had been
quite clear in their
accusations.
Glitter
went on to blame the
British media for him
ending up in a Vietnam
jail.
He
described the press as
the "worst enemy in the
world", saying that they
tracked him all over the
globe after his
conviction in the UK for
downloading child
pornography from the
internet in
1999.
He
said his troubles in
Vietnam began when a
newspaper journalist
tracked him down to Vung
Tau, where he is now
imprisoned.
"I
felt after I left prison
in England that maybe
there was a slim chance
I could put my life back
on track and have a
career," Glitter
said.
"But
after some time, the
people that surrounded
me, lawyers etc and
managers, said: 'We
don't think so, as the
media have already made
such a big deal about
this'."
He
said he was "not a
paedophile".
"I
came to Cambodia because
I read a book about the
Mekong. I wanted to see
if there was somewhere I
could live, I love the
sunshine, that's the
very reason."
He
said he still envisaged
going back to the UK,
although he said he did
not think about his
future.
"The
only thing I think about
is trying to win the
appeal and trying to put
some honour and dignity
back to my family, my
friends and the fans
who've supported me all
this time."
Christine
Beddoe, director of End
Child Prostitution,
Pornography and
Trafficking (Ecpat),
said: "His comments must
be placed within the
context of a much longer
history of child
abuse.
"He
is trying to minimise
what he has done, but
the girls gave a clear
account of their
experiences. We need to
make sure we do not
minimise the evidence
given by the victims in
this case. We must allow
children to tell their
story and not just have
the words of
Gadd."
Philippa
Lei, child rights policy
adviser at
World
Vision
UK,
said the charity had
welcomed Glitter's
conviction because "it
sends a strong
prevention message to
other people travelling
abroad who may be
tempted to engage in
sexual activities with
an underage
child".
She
said the government and
tourism industry needed
to provide more
information about the
penalties in other
countries.
"We
hope the public's
attention has been drawn
to the issue of child
sex tourism as a whole,"
she said. "We have
anecdotal evidence that
other British men are
offending in this
way."
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