ANGER OVER BBC'S JAIL INTERVIEW WITH GLITTER
By Stephanie Condron

Telegraph.co.uk, UK: 3 May 2006
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/03/nbbc03.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/05/03/ixportaltop.html
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The BBC was accused yesterday of giving Gary Glitter a platform to
"groom" the nation by screening an interview from his prison cell in
which he denies sexually abusing under-age girls.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was jailed for three years in
March for sexually molesting two young girls in Vietnam but, in his
first interview since the court case, he said: "I am not a paedophile.
I have not done anything."

The 61-year-old former singer said he had only let the girls into his
bed because they were "scared of ghosts" and that he never slept with
anyone under 18.

He is due to appear at an appeal hearing later this month to state his
case for the conviction to be overturned and was yesterday given a
free rein to protest his innocence.

The interview led several BBC news bulletins and the 1pm screening
prompted more than 100 viewers to complain. But the BBC broadcast it
again at 6pm.

Paul Harris, a retired businessman from Wivelsfield Green, East
Sussex, who watched the lunchtime news, said: "It's quite outrageous
that they should have given the oxygen of publicity to a man who has
been found guilty and given him an opportunity to try to clear
himself.

"The BBC seems to have overlooked the reality of the situation."

Christine Beddoe, the director of the charity End Child Prostitution,
Pornography and Trafficking, said: "He is manipulating the media and
the British public just as a sexual offender would manipulate or groom
their victim and the victim's families. It's beyond me that [the
interview] has happened."

Glitter's trial heard graphic testimony from the girls. They said he
had molested them in his rented seaside villa in southern Vung Tau and
nearby hotels.

When he delivered the verdict, the judge said Glitter committed
obscene acts with children many times "in a disgusting and sick
manner".

But Glitter told the BBC: "I don't believe that I have slept with an
under-age girl."

The former singer will be eligible for parole after serving one-third
of his three-year sentence.

He faces immediate deportation on his release and is unlikely to have
a choice over where he is sent.

Glitter left Britain after admitting possession of a collection of
4,000 hardcore photographs of children being abused and receiving a
four-month jail sentence in November 1999. He was put on the sex
offenders' register for seven years.

In 2002, he was deported from Cambodia after the country's deputy
prime minister, Sar Kheng, asked for him to leave as a "preventative
measure for protecting the well-being of our children".

The BBC said yesterday: "Paul Gadd's trials and convictions have been
covered prominently and at great length by every major newspaper and
broadcaster.

"His intention to return to the UK and inability to acknowledge his
crimes are clearly matters in the public interest and ones that the
BBC has a duty to explain. The BBC report made it very clear that Gadd
is a convicted paedophile.

"He was strongly challenged on his protestations of innocence.

"His convictions both in the UK and Vietnam were detailed on screen so
viewers could not be in any doubt as to his guilt."