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The crimes committed by convicted paedophile Paul Gadd – better known as pop star Gary Glitter – were obviously horrific. So a feature-length documentary about the drawn-out process of bringing him to justice made for challenging, occasionally stomach-turning viewing.
But Glitter: The Popstar Paedophile was nonetheless an important film. It was mindful of Gadd’s victims and the trauma they continue to live with, and damning towards a society that turned a blind eye towards a monster and allowed him to prey on children with impunity.
With hindsight, it seems grotesque that Gadd was ever welcomed into the nation’s living rooms as a pop star. It is unfair to judge a person by their appearance. But as with his contemporary Jimmy Savile, footage of Gadd in the 70s raises all sorts of red flags. Glitter reminded us of Gadd’s hit “What Your Mama Don’t See (Your Mama Don’t Know!)”, with lyrics that today make the skin crawl: “You insist you’re not to be kissed/Cause your mama’s not far away”.
In archive footage, interviewers repeatedly referred to the youth of his fanbase. The remarks prompted nervous glares from Gadd, who clearly feared being called out.
But his behaviour was never scrutinised. Not even after the News of the World reported in 1993 about inappropriate activity between Gadd and a 14-year-old. The newspaper, we discovered, was more interested in the fact he wore a wig than that he had raped a minor. Incredibly, he continued to have a career despite the headline, “Gary Glitter’s Under Age Sex”.
“This should have been the thing that got him shut down,” said Iain Lee, a comedian and counsellor – and a Glitter fan in his youth. “But it didn’t.”
The documentary suggested Gadd got away with it because he was both a pop star and a national treasure who possessed an easy charm. “I thought he was a weirdo who chatted people up,” said a journalist who struck up a friendship with him in the 80s. “When you met him and spoke to him… he was a gentleman,” recalled TV presenter Debi Jones, who said there was nothing to indicate Gadd was a predator. “Jimmy Savile,” she added, “was a totally different kettle of fish.”
Glitter skilfully showed how his carefully crafted rock star persona fell apart in 1997 when a laptop he handed in for repairs was revealed to contain child pornography. He was convicted of possession of pornography. However, a trial for the assault of an underage girl fell apart, with the judge reasoning that “there are 14-year-old girls and there are 14-year-old girls” – a statement worryingly close to victim-blaming.
“One victim, one abuser – it’s always going to be very difficult to prove,” said Margaret Oliver, the former detective constable who spoke out about police mishandling of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring – interviewed here in her capacity as a child abuse victim campaigner.
Gadd fled to south-east Asia, where he preyed on children in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam before being arrested. It was a dark story, although for Gadd’s victims in the UK, a ray of light appeared when he was arrested as part of Operation Yewtree, the investigation into historic sex crimes launched in the wake of revelations about Jimmy Savile’s lifetime of abuse. Gadd is now in jail after being convicted of multiple sex offences in 2015, and may well die there.
However, questions remained, and this bruising but important documentary stood as an indictment of a society that let him off the hook for decades. “I don’t believe for one moment that the people around Gary Glitter didn’t know what he was doing,” said Ms Oliver in a devastating conclusion to a powerful film. “Why did you not do something?”
Streaming on ITVX
