GLITTER:STAR’S ATTRACTION TO KIDS SHIELDED BY ‘IMMUNITY OF FAME’
Gary Glitter’s attraction to children was shielded by the ‘immunity of fame,’ jurors heard today (tues).
In his closing speech prosecutor John Price QC said the 70-year-old’s interest in children was not like a ‘youthful fondness for fast cars’.
In 1997, the chart-topper was caught with 4,000 vile images showing a ‘full range of sexual activity taking place between adult men and very young children’ after dropping his laptop off for repair at PC World in Bristol.
Glitter pleaded guilty and ‘admitted responsibility’ for the sickening stash of photos in 1999.
But although one alleged victim spoke to the police at the time it was only with the exposure of Jimmy Savile that two further women felt able to break their silence.
The bewigged rocker, real name Paul Gadd, is facing trial at Southwark Crown Court for a string of alleged sex crimes on three underage girls in the 1970s and 1980s.
Mr Price said: ‘The case against this defendant on this indictment does not depend on the evidence of the content of his laptop computer.
‘Even if, as I shall so try to demonstrate, that is evidence of importance to the case.
‘Why is it so?
‘Firstly, it is not simply a case of seeking to give a dog a bad name. The prosecution ask you to put aside emotion.
‘To put aside any revulsion you may feel and to apply to this issue a rational and measured line of reasoning.’
He added: ‘It is the unlikelihood of co-incidence.’
Glitter, he told jurors, had a ‘minority interest’ in children which was ‘exceedingly rare’ and ‘not widely shared’.
‘Most adults not only have no desire to view such images, they would be repulsed by it.
‘The simple truth is that the overwhelming majority of adults have a sexual interest in other adults.
‘As far as children, essentially young children are concerned the predominant instinct of the vast majority of adults is a protective one,’ he added.
‘We are not talking here about a youthful fondness for fast cars, a passing fad or a hobby that may come and go.
‘We are talking about an adult man’s sexuality – his sexual interests.
‘Let’s be blunt about it, we are talking about what arouses him,’ said Mr Price.
‘Did he wake up one morning in 1997 and suddenly start thinking about young children sexually because things weren’t going well at work and he was feeling a bit lonely?’
Glitter told jurors he accepted responsibility for the vile library of sickening images when he pleaded guilty to 54 child porn offences.
Mr Price dismissed Glitter’s excuses for the pictures as the evidence showed it was his computer and his credit card had been used.
‘He could hardly have claimed could he that it was all down to someone else?’
Glitter blamed the photos on an amphetamine addiction, insisted he was pining for his Cuban lover Yudenia Sosa Martinez and that he was exhausted by a hectic work schedule.
Mr Price slammed him for blaming external factors rather than ‘the man himself’ in his ‘melodramatic denial’.
‘The simple truth about all of this, which he just can’t afford to admit to you but which is obvious because he downloaded those images because he was interested in looking at them because they arouse him.
‘And he cannot afford to do that, to admit to it however obvious it may seem because the moment he does so he knows perfectly well that he reveals to you something relevant about himself of a kind that has to have existed long before 1997.
‘That has to have existed for as long as he has been an adult,’ said Mr Price.
‘In each of these three cases is there any obvious motive for the making of a false complaint,’ he asked jurors.
Mr Price added: ‘I’ve called it the immunity of fame.
‘Did it not used to exist, if not now we are a little bit wiser?
‘The attitude changes in October 2012 when it comes to light after [Savile’s] death, when a man thought to be a latter day saint for his charity work is revealed to be something else.
‘Shouldn’t [Glitter’ complainants] be emboldened to come forward at that time?’
And he dismissed Glitter’s defence that he could not have abused young fans after his shows because he was styling his wig.
‘Is it seriously to be suggested – there has been an attempt – that never, after any of his concerts did this defendant invite fans to return with him to the dressing room and after that to his hotel because he needed to wash his wig?
‘Members of the jury, I don’t want a cynical approach but I do ask for a realistic one.
‘As I suggested to Mr Gadd, the post-concert hotel party with the occasional bit of damage thrown in is the stuff of rock and pop legend.
‘But now we have it from his own solicitor.
‘After a decent interval to enable Mr Gadd to wind down and to prepare of course guests were invited to his dressing room and provided with drinks.’
Speaking from video link in the Bahamas, Glitter’s solicitor in the 1970s Ray Brown confirmed he would drink with the star after shows.
‘We used to have drinks backstage after the show was over and after Gary had got himself backstage again because he had a very physical performance.
‘So when about half an hour or 45 minutes after coming off stage there would have been people there from the record company, producers, general people to have a drink,’ he said.
After one of his ‘energetic’ performances Glitter claimed he would spend up to an hour and a half cleaning and styling his hairpiece.
He insisted his vanity meant he could not possibly have met two young girls after his shows he is accused of abusing.
Glitter, of Bickenhall Mansions, Bickenhall Street, Marylebone, west London denies attempted rape of a child and an alternative count of indecent assault when she was under the age of 13 in the mid-1970s.
He denies a further charge of plying a 12-year-old with alcohol to have sex with her and a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse.
He also denies four counts of indecently assaulting the alleged victim between 31 January 1977 and 31 December 1977.
Glitter further denies two further charges of indecent assault relating to a third complainant between October 1979 and December 1980.
The trial continues.
ends
