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Pop paedophile Gary Glitter is being treated ‘like royalty’ with staff providing room service for him in a bail hostel, MailOnline can reveal.
Sources at the facility where the serial child abuser, 78, was taken after being ushered out of jail under cover of darkness, half-way through his 16-year sentence, said he was receiving VIP treatment in the hostel and hadn’t mixed with other residents.
One source said Glitter was having his meals delivered to him by staff at the hostel – which has a garden which sits on a leafy street with around ten schools nearby in the south of England.
‘There are lifers in the hostel and they aren’t happy Glitter is in there. He’s fine though – he’s talking to people, which is one of the things they monitor.
‘They need to see that you’re interacting with people to get a chance of being released properly.
Pop paedophile Gary Glitter, pictured, who was released from jail yesterday, is being housed in a bail hostel near a number of schools
The hostel is in an undisclosed location in the south of England
‘He won’t be going anywhere outside for a few days yet.
Other people did not get escorted in here and treated like royalty the way he was. It’s caused a bit of upset and resentment.’
The hostel, in a suburban area behind electric gates, is within walking distance of no fewer than ten schools.
The inmates have an outdoor gym, football goalposts, smoking shelter and spacious grounds to walk around, with an allotment area.
‘I know these people have to be put somewhere,’ one middle-aged woman told Mail Online, ‘but there are loads of children, playgrounds and schools in this area, and it doesn’t seem to be the best choice for a man like him.’
One children’s playground on a private estate right next to Glitter’s hostel is even visible through the fencing, and a child’s swing is right by the fence.
Glitter was freed in 2008 and returned to Britain, where he was jailed again in 2015 for child sex abuse dating back to the 1970s
A victim of disgraced paedophile Gary Glitter said the ‘monster’ is ‘still a danger to society’
Other residents said the bail hostel, which is also a probation centre, is a blight on their neighbourhood.
‘The ex-cons drop litter all over the pavements and not so long ago an elderly neighbour of ours was pushed over by one of them because the former prisoner had scratched his face on the old man’s hedge next to the pavement.’
According to reports, Glitter, who had a string of 1970s hits, has refused to engage with prison sex offender treatment programmes.
A source said: ‘He attended the sessions but made it quite clear he wasn’t interested.
‘It was like a naughty kid staring out of the window throughout class.
‘If a dangerous sex offender refuses to engage, surely they’re just not fit for release?’
Others wondered why Glitter was apparently accompanied by three or four police officers on his 1.30am release from HMP The Verne, in Portland, Dorset, at taxpayer’s expense, when he’s perfectly capable of paying for his own taxi or even security detail.
‘Most prisoners are just given a bus or taxi fare if they’re lucky,’ said a source. ‘He was given the five-star treatment, which seems to be continuing in the hostel.’
Lawyer Richard Scorer, who represents one of Glitter’s victims, told The Sun: ‘If there’s one thing we know about serious sex offenders, it’s that they are overwhelmingly likely to try to offend again.
‘It’s almost inconceivable that he won’t and his failure to engage with these programmes just reinforces that.
‘My client will be incredibly concerned.
‘Glitter will be subject to a number of licence conditions for a period of time.
‘But the system is never fail-safe and once someone is out there’s always a risk.
‘With someone like this there’s a significant risk — and that’s a very difficult thing for victims to be contemplating.
‘This is a real source of concern.
‘This needs to be looked at because there’s a real disconnect between the way the system operates and the way it looks to victims and the risk it involves.’
Glitter has been categorised as a ‘level 3’ offender.
It means he is still seen as ‘dangerous’ and ‘capable of causing serious harm’ and will need senior probation staff to monitor him.
Any breach of his licence conditions would see Glitter facing an instant return to jail.
He still owns a luxury top-floor £2m flat in a Victorian red-brick mansion block near Baker Street, London.
The vacant flat has not been in his name since he was arrested in Vietnam in 2006.
The home – which residents in the block say lay empty during his incarceration – is controlled by a former associate through a company.
The shamed pop idol was caged for 16 years in 2015 for sex offences against three girls aged eight to 13.
Because he was sentenced to a fixed term, he did not have to go before the Parole Board.
Parole chiefs can block a prisoner’s release if they believe they still pose a risk to the public.
Glitter — was one of the UK’s biggest glam rock stars of the 1970s and a familiar face of BBC’s TV chart show Top of the Pops. He had a string of hits including three UK No1 singles: I’m the Leader of the Gang (I Am!), I Love You Love Me Love and Always Yours.
By 1975, he had sold 18million records but by the end of the decade he was declared bankrupt.
He made a comeback with his hit single Dance Me Up in 1984.
Glitter’s dramatic fall from grace began in 1997 when he took a laptop into a Bristol branch of PC World for repair.
An engineer found child abuse images on the hard drive.
Two years later the singer was jailed for four months after a total of 4,000 images were found by police in a subsequent investigation.
Glitter emigrated on release, before being kicked out of Cambodia in 2002 amid claims of sex crimes.
Four years later he was jailed in neighbouring Vietnam for molesting two girls, one aged just ten.
He escaped serious charges of child rape — which carried a death sentence — and returned to the UK in 2008.
He was forced to sign the sex offenders register, but he was arrested once again in 2012 at his multi-million pound home in Westminster.
Police would later describe him as a ‘habitual sexual predator who took advantage of the star status afforded to him’.
And in 2015 he was convicted of attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one of having sex with a girl under 13 in the 1970s and 1980s.
Sentencing, Judge Alistair McCreath said he could find ‘no real evidence’ that Glitter had atoned for his crimes.
The judge said: ‘It is difficult to overstate the depravity of this dreadful behaviour.’
He added: ‘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.’
In June 2021 it was revealed Glitter had been given the green light for freedom.
One of his child victims in Vietnam — whom he molested when she was just aged ten — said at the time: ‘He will always be a terrible danger to young girls.
‘It’s terrifying to think he might soon be free.
‘I still have nightmares about what he did to me.’
Glitter no longer owns the master rights to his songs — meaning he no longer receives any royalties.
In 2019, his song Rock and Roll Part 2 featured in hit movie The Joker, but rights holders insisted he would not receive any royalties.
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