In November 1997, Glitter was arrested after pornographic images of children were discovered on the hard drive of a
Toshiba laptop that he had taken to the Bristol Cribbs Causeway branch of
PC World for repair. As a result, he was castigated in the media over the allegations. Additionally, his appearance in the
Spice Girls' film
Spiceworld The Movie was cut. Nevertheless, a truncated edit of the scene, featuring a version of Glitter's "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)", was still included in the film. In the months before his conviction, he thanked audiences for their support at his last show before his trial.
In 1999, Glitter was sentenced to four months' imprisonment and listed as a
sex offender in the UK following conviction for downloading thousands of items of
child pornography.
[6]
He was also charged with having sex with an underage girl, Alison Brown, around 20 years earlier, when she was 14 years old. She had had a relationship with Glitter for some years.
[20] Glitter was acquitted of this charge after it emerged that Brown had sold her story to the
News of the World and stood to earn more money from the newspaper should Glitter be convicted.
[21]
Following a rejection by the British public and facing scrutiny from the press following his arrest and conviction, Gary Glitter fled on his yacht to
Spain. Upon being discovered there, he set sail again, ultimately travelling to
Gibraltar,
Cuba,
Mexico,
South Africa,
Zimbabwe,
Colombia,
Portugal,
Brazil,
Venezuela, and
Thailand, before settling in
Cambodia.
[edit] Southeast Asia
[edit] Cambodia
Glitter lived in Cambodia until 2002, when he was permanently deported from there to
Vietnam,
[22] due to suspected
child sexual abuse.
[23]
[edit] Vietnam underage sex conviction
From March 2005, Glitter resided in
Vũng Tàu,
Vietnam. In late 2005, at age 61, Gary Glitter was arrested by Vietnamese authorities and charged with molesting two underaged girls, aged 10 and 11, at his home in Vũng Tàu.
[24] He initially faced possible child
rape charges carrying the
death penalty, but prosecutors did not find enough evidence for those charges, so Glitter was instead tried for lesser
child sexual abuse charges. Early in 2006, he was convicted of committing obscene acts with minors and sentenced to three years imprisonment.
[24] On one of two appeals, in 2007 this was reduced by three months. He was released from prison on 19 August 2008 and returned to London three days later, after being refused entry into Thailand and Hong Kong.
Arrest and trial
Despite having applied for permanent residence in Vietnam, Gary Glitter fled his home on 12 November 2005. Three days later, he was arrested in
Ho Chi Minh City while trying to board a flight to
Thailand. Six Vietnamese females, aged from 11 to 23, claimed that Glitter had had sex with them; the
age of consent in Vietnam is 18.
[25]
