Gary Glitter sentenced to 16 years in prison over sexual assaults

Former British pop star Gary Glitter was sentenced on Friday to 16 years in prison for sexually assaulting three minor girls by a court in Southwark, southern London.

Glitter, 70, was convicted of one count of attempted rape, a charge of performing sexual intercourse with a minor girl, and four counts of sexual assault, committed between 1975 and 1980.

The former singer, who was present in the courtroom, showed no reaction when Judge Alistair McCreath announced the sentence, after being found guilty of these charges earlier this month.

McCreath said on Friday that Glitter’s actions had a profound impact on the victims.

“You did all of them real and lasting damage and you did so for no other reason than to obtain sexual gratification for yourself of a wholly improper kind,” the judge said.

In 1999, Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, had already served a fourmonth sentence in prison after admitting he had more than 4,000 pornographic images of children in his possession.

Glitter, who was imprisoned in 2012, was the first to be arrested under Operation Yewtree, a police operation against child abuse in which the late Jimmy Savile, a former BBC television presenter, was also investigated.