Gary Glitter freed from prison after serving half of sentence for abusing girls

Disgraced pop star Gary Glitter has been released from prison, according to the Press Association.

The 79-year-old has been freed after serving half of his 16-year sentence for sexually abusing three schoolgirls, the PA news agency understands.

The former glam rock singer reportedly left HMP The Verne – a low security category C jail in Portland, Dorset – on Friday after eight years behind bars. He will now be subject to licence conditions.

Glitter, who had a string of chart hits in the 1970s, was convicted and jailed in 2015 for the historic sex attacks.

He attacked two girls, aged 12 and 13, after inviting them backstage to his dressing room, and isolating them from their mothers.

The singer crept into the bed of his third victim – a girl who was aged under 10 at the time – in an attempt to rape her in 1975.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was at the height of his fame when he preyed on the youngsters.

The allegations came to light when he became the first person to be arrested under Operation Yewtree – the investigation launched by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Sex offenders like Paul Gadd are closely monitored by the police and Probation Service and face some of the strictest licence conditions including being fitted with a GPS tag.

“If the offender breaches these conditions at any point, they can go back behind bars.

“We’ve already introduced tougher sentences for the worst offenders and ended the automatic halfway release for serious crimes.”

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Sentencing Glitter in 2015, Judge Alistair McCreath said all the victims were “profoundly affected” by the abuse and suffered “lasting damage”.

He said it was “difficult to overstate” this “dreadful behaviour” when referring to the assault on one victim, telling Glitter he was able to attack another “only” because of his fame.

Glitter later lost a Court of Appeal challenge against his conviction.

His fall from grace happened years earlier after he admitted possessing around 4,000 child pornography images and was jailed for four months in 1999.

In 2002, he was expelled from Cambodia amid reports of sex crime allegations, and 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 prison.