R2OK!

mark occomore · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 9955 Location: UK

HO CHI MINH CITY (Reuters) - Disgraced British ex-rocker Gary Glitter, imprisoned in Vietnam for sexually molesting two young girls, is on a list of inmates to be possibly released this month, his lawyer said on Friday.

Glitter, 62, was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison during a one-day trial in March last year and subsequently lost an appeal.

Every year at major national holidays, the Vietnam President authorizes amnesty for prisoners. In two weeks time, Vietnam will ring in the Lunar New Year, or Tet, the Southeast Asian country's most important celebration.

"My client is on the list for Tet amnesty consideration and I expect to hear the final decision in a few days," Glitter's lawyer Le Thanh Kinh told Reuters in Ho Chi Minh City.

"If he is amnestied he will be released very soon, probably next week," Kinh said.

Glitter denied he molested the girls while living in a villa in the southern resort town of Vung Tau. He was arrested at Ho Chi Minh City airport in November 2005 while trying to leave the country.

Glitter's real name is Paul Francis Gadd. He rose to fame in the 1970s with a bouffant hairstyle, make-up, high heels and "glam rock" stage performances.

His hits included "Rock and Roll (Parts 1 & 2)" and "I Love You Love Me Love," "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)" and "I'm the Leader of Gang (I am)," an anthem that lives on in U.S. sports stadiums.

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Hopefully we wont have to fund him in our jails? Well there is no room. So the electric chair then!! Rolling Eyes

SantaFefan · Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:51 pm Post subject:

Pity really, I liked his music....

he'll probably enter Big Brother and make a fortune...

brumboy · Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 15 Location: Birmingham

Yes I liked some of his stuff too, not enough to go out and buy it though.
As for Big Brother, sadly I think you'r spot on there, it's just the sort of controversy they would love.

iknewdavidjacobsmum · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 336

Hopefully we wont have to fund him in our jails? Well there is no room. So the electric chair then!!

Doubt if he will last a day in Prison. Don't think he has enough contacts left to scoot off somewhere else.
Silly S**
Used to go to the Christmas Gang shows, he could have lived a quiet retirement if he wasn't so thick.

mark occomore · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 9955 Location: UK

Pop star Gary Glitter has had his three-year child molestation sentence in Vietnam reduced by three months.

Glitter, real name Paul Francis Gadd, was convicted of the sexual abuse of two Vietnamese girls in March 2006.

Tran Thi Thien Huong, a judge on the deciding panel, said the decision under a national amnesty means Glitter will now be released in August 2008.

The incidents involved two girls aged 10 and 11 from the southern coastal city of Vung Tau.

Vietnam traditionally reduces the sentences of inmates with good prison records as part of a nationwide Lunar New Year jail amnesty.

Glitter could have had his sentence reduced by up to half under the amnesty.

Glitter's lawyer had earlier told journalists his client could be freed from Thu Duc prison, in the south of the country, in as little as a week.

The panel of three judges said they had to balance Glitter's good behaviour in prison with the seriousness of the crimes he had committed. Other amnesties could reduce his sentence further.

Christine Beddoe, director of child protection group Ecpat UK, said she was "disappointed" that Glitter's sentence had been cut.

"Ecpat UK fully believes that Paul Gadd should serve the fullest sentence in order to protect children in Vietnam and the rest of the world," she said.

"We believe that the British government must request his deportation at the end of his sentence and immediate return to the UK, and he should be put on the sex offenders' register."

After a two-day trial that attracted a great deal of media attention, Glitter was jailed and ordered to pay 5m Vietnamese dong (£180/$315) to his victims' families. He has been in jail since November 2005.

Child pornography

Ahead of the decision, Glitter's lawyer, Le Thanh Kinh, was optimistic that the judges would reduce the sentence.

He said: "Glitter is an old man and he is not in good health. And he has paid compensation to the victims as required by the court."

Glitter was convicted of possessing child pornography in the UK in 1999 and served half of a four-month jail sentence.

He later went to Cambodia, which permanently expelled him in 2002.