Gary Glitter ordered to sign sex offenders register

Disgraced singer Gary Glitter will have to sign the sex offenders register after a judge today agreed to an application for a…

Disgraced singer Gary Glitter will have to sign the sex offenders register after a judge today agreed to an application for a notification order made by police.

A solicitor for the former glam rock star had argued that his conviction for abusing two young girls in Vietnam was "a travesty of justice" and the court should give him time to consider opposing it.

But district judge David Simpson, sitting at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court in west London, just hours after Glitter arrived back in Britain, said that the star had "demonstrated his desire to avoid the jurisdiction of this court" and ordered that he sign on as a sex offender.

The 64-year-old, whose real name is Paul Gadd, did not attend the court hearing in person.

Glitter will have to sign on the Sex Offenders Register within three days and the order will last indefinitely. He has 21 days in which to appeal.

He was earlier greeted by police at Heathrow Airport, where he was escorted through immigration and customs after touching down on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok.

He will be required to tell authorities where he plans to live, be monitored by police and the probation service, and could also face an order prohibiting him from going near children or using the internet.

His return to the UK brought to an end the bizarre series of shuttle flights between different airports.

Glitter returned to Bangkok yesterday after Hong Kong barred him from entering following his release from three years' prison in Vietnam for child sex abuse.

Thai immigration police detained the Briton after his flight landed at Bangkok's international airport.

Glitter was booted out of Vietnam on Tuesday at the end of his sentence but feigned ear and heart problems in Bangkok to miss a connecting flight to London, apparently fearful of a hostile reception in Britain.

He was allowed to board a Thai Airways flight to Hong Kong late on Wednesday even though immigration police said he would be deported to London "as soon as possible."

Hong Kong authorities refused to let him in and put him back on a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok, where he has been declared persona non grata.

In a prison interview with an official Vietnamese newspaper shortly before his release, Glitter said he wanted to go to Singapore or Hong Kong to revive his music career.

As well as Thailand and Hong Kong, he is officially black-listed in Cambodia, where he spent several years in hiding before moving quietly to Vietnam.

The British press eventually located him in 2005 in the southern resort town of Vung Tau. He tried to flee, but was arrested at the airport and convicted soon afterwards of having sex with two young girls.

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Reuters/PA