Gary Glitter will stay in prison after the Parole Board refused the disgraced singer’s bid to be released.

Glitter, 81, was recalled to jail less than six weeks after he was released halfway through his 16-year sentence in 2023 for breaching his licence conditions by allegedly viewing downloaded images of children.

He was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment in 2015 after being found guilty of sexually assaulting three schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980.

The Parole Board last year said it was “not satisfied that release at this point would be safe for the protection of the public” after a hearing held behind closed doors.

A spokesman on Tuesday said his release was refused again following a “paper review”.

“Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community,” a statement said.

“A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.

“Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.”

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, will be eligible for a further review at a date set by the Ministry of Justice. His sentence expires in February 2031.

He was made bankrupt earlier this year after failing to pay more than £500,000 in damages to a woman who sued him for abusing her when she was 12 years old.

Richard Scorer, head of abuse law and public inquiries at Slater and Gordon, who represented the woman, told Sky News the Parole Board has made “the right decision”.

He added: “My client is relieved at this ruling but apprehensive about having to go through the merry-go-round of Gadd coming up for parole again, and the fear of him being let out on licence.

“This is unfair on victims and it would be better if they were assured that he would serve the rest of his sentence.”

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Glitter was first jailed for four months in 1999 after he admitted possessing around 4,000 indecent images of children.

He was expelled from Cambodia in 2002, and in March 2006 was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam, where he spent two-and-a-half years in prison.

Glitter was automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, in February 2023 after serving half of his fixed-term determinate sentence.

But he was back behind bars weeks later after reportedly trying to access the dark web and images of children.

The head of Britain’s biggest energy supplier has claimed his competitors oppose proposals for so-called postcode pricing because they financially benefit from the current system.

Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson told Sky News his business’s rivals were against customers being charged based on where they lived, rather than on a national basis, because they would lose out on profits.

He said: “A very small number of companies that today get paid tens of millions, sometimes in a single day, to turn off wind farms and generate gas elsewhere, don’t like it.

“The reason you’re seeing that kind of behaviour from the rivals is they are benefiting from the current system that’s generating incredible profitability.”

The government is currently considering whether to introduce the policy, which is also known as zonal pricing. Energy secretary Ed Miliband is expected to make a decision on the proposals by this summer.

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Octopus has become Britain’s biggest supplier with more than seven million customers.

Mr Jackson has been a vocal proponent, as he said he wants to charge customers less and boost government electrification policies by having cheaper electricity costs.

What is postcode pricing?

Sarah Taaffe-Maguire

Business and economics reporter

@taaffems

Zonal pricing would mean electricity bills are based on what region you live in.

Some parts of Britain, like northern Scotland, are home to huge energy producers in the form of offshore wind farms.

But rather than feeding electricity to local homes and businesses, power goes into a nationwide auction and is bought to go across Britain.

As the energy grid is still wired for the old coal-producing sites rather than the modern renewable generators, it’s not straightforward to get electricity from where it’s increasingly produced to the places people live and work.

That leads to traffic jams on the grid, blocking paid-for electricity moving to where it’s needed and a system where producers can be paid a second time, to power down, and other suppliers, often gas plants, are paid to meet the shortfall.

Zonal pricing is designed to prevent paying the generators for power that can’t be used.

It would mean those in Scotland have lower wholesale energy costs while those in the south, where there is less renewable energy production, would have higher wholesale costs.

Whether bills go up or down depends on implementation.

Savings from one region could be spread across Britain, lowering bills across the board.

Mr Miliband has said he’s not going to decide to raise prices.

However, SSE’s chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies described the policy as a “distraction” and said it could affect already agreed-upon upgrades of the national grid that will lower costs.

“I think you’ve got a very, very small number of people who are asking for this. It’s just a distraction. We should remove it now,” he said.

While Octopus Energy estimates that said postcode pricing could be introduced in two to four years, Mr Phillips-Davies said it could take until 2032 before it was implemented, by which time Britain would have “built much of the networks that are required to get the energy from these places down into the homes and businesses that actually need it”.

“We just need to stay true to the course,” he added.

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Unions, as well as industry and energy representatives, have also spoken out against the policy. Opponents include eco-tycoon Dale Vince and trade body UK Steel.

A joint letter signed by SSE, UK Steel, Ceramics UK and British Glass, along with the unions GMB, Unite and Unison, said zonal pricing could lead to scaled-back investment due to uncertainty and higher bills.

A separate letter signed by 55 investors, including Centrica and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, has also criticised the policy.

However, Mr Jackson said many investors had not voiced opposition, with thousands of small and medium businesses instead backing the policy in the hope of paying less on energy bills.