Gary Glitter victims denied a voice by Parole Board: Woman abused by paedophile popstar was not allowed to read victim impact statement at private hearing

Gary Glitter victims denied a voice by Parole Board: Woman abused by paedophile popstar was not allowed to read victim impact statement at private hearing

A woman who was abused by paedophile popstar Gary Glitter has not been allowed to read a victim impact statement at his private parole hearing, her lawyer has said.

The disgraced singer is believed to have appeared before the Parole Board on Wednesday as they consider whether to free him after he was locked up from breaching his bail conditions. 

The 79-year-old was found surfing the dark web just 39 days after being automatically released halfway through his 16-year sentence for sexually abusing three schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980.

A lawyer for one of his victims has now claimed that she wasn’t allowed to speak at his parole hearing, despite being willing to do so, and that he wasn’t allowed to write to the Parole Board about the sex offender’s lack of remorse.

The process is taking place behind closed doors after an application to have it held in public was rejected in October.

Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer for Slater & Gordon, said the situation had been ‘shrouded in secrecy’.

He told the Mirror: ‘She [the victim] hasn’t been given any opportunity to read her witness impact statement.

‘We tried to write to the Parole Board regarding Glitter’s lack of remorse. We were told that our letter could not be placed before them directly but the information could be included in the Probation Service’s report to the board.

‘We do not know what information has in fact been provided to the panel hearing regarding the matter today – the process is shrouded in secrecy despite previous promises from the Parole Board to adopt a more open approach.’

He added that the woman was ‘angry and frustrated’ after finding out the hearing would be held in private, and that it is ‘unacceptable’ that ‘nobody will know what evidence the Parole Board has considered’ when making its decision.

The Parole Board declined to comment when contacted by the publication. 

The same woman is also suing Glitter – whose real name is Paul Gadd – for damages following the ‘appalling sexual assaults which he committed on her when she was 12 years old’, Mr Scorer said prior to the hearing.

‘This case is proceeding through the High Court,’ he said.

‘Throughout the case Glitter has refused to co-operate at all and has ignored court orders, deliberately making the process more stressful and traumatic for our client.

‘This behaviour demonstrates Glitter’s total lack of remorse.’

Glitter was automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, in February last year after serving half of his 16-year fixed-term determinate sentence.

Less than six weeks after walking free, he was taken back to prison for breaching his licence conditions by allegedly viewing downloaded images of children.

In October 2023 an application to have this month’s parole hearing in public was rejected, on the grounds that it was too difficult to contact all of his victims.

Glitter’s fall from grace began in the late 1990s when he was jailed for possessing thousands of child abuse images and was jailed for four months in 1999.

Six months after moving to Cambodia in 2002 he was expelled amid reports of sex crime allegations.

In March 2006 he was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam and spent two and a half years in jail.

The offences for which he was jailed in 2015 came to light as part of Operation Yewtree, the Metropolitan Police investigation launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.