PORTRAIT OF A PREDATOR
Horrifying moment I looked at this snap of my friend Gary Glitter with his arms around my 12-year-old disabled sister... and realised he had been grooming her
ISTAYED up all night after the guilty verdict was passed, restless with revulsion but also with relief. I dug out this old photograph and forced myself to look at it. There he was, Paul Gadd – Gary Glitter to the ‘glam rock’ generation – with an innocent young fan. But this was not just any young fan. This was my 12year-old sister, Sam.
For more than a year, during the 1980s, this vile pervert Gadd was my bosom pal. I hung out with him, cooked for him, drank with him, shared secrets with him. But, to my eternal shame, I put this beautiful little girl in danger. Because I was oblivious of his intent, I allowed him to groom her.
Gary no longer glitters. He is a balding, paunchy has-been. For a while, he was as big as they get. He had topped the charts during the early 1970s with the hits I had danced to as a child: I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am), I Love You Love Me Love and Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah).
Last week, when Gadd stood in the dock at Southwark Crown Court, accused of attempted rape, indecent assault and sexual intercourse with a child, no one was taken in by his performance. No one felt sorry for the sad fur-coated old man with white goatee and coloured-in eyebrows.
They saw only the defiant face of a paedophile – a habitual sexual predator who had stolen the innocence of young girls.
It sickens me now to remember, but for a year of my life I partied with him deluding myself that we were best friends.
Gary and I met at Ewart Television studios in Wandsworth, south London, where DJs Gary Crowley, Nicky Horne and I filmed, every Friday, the live elements of the Saturday night rock show Ear Say that we presented for Channel 4.
I had been plucked from obscurity, writing sleeve notes at Chrysalis Records, and given my chance. I’d been a huge fan of Gary and his Glitter Band in the 1970s, and was thrilled to meet the man in person.
He defined glam rock as one big send-up, veering off into self-parody almost the moment he’d had his first hit. After an initial rush of fame, obscurity beckoned.
But by the early 1980s Gary was making a comeback as a solo artist. His image was ‘safe-sexy’. How ridiculous, those ankle-threatening silver platform boots. How absurd, the middle-aged midriff packed impossibly into sequins. I was young, impressionable, embarrassingly unworldly, and beyond flattered that a rock star with a surfeit of celebrity pals had chosen me as his confidante.
More fool me. There was only one reason why Glitter wanted to know me: I had a little sister, who was easy prey.
Sam, then aged 12, was one of my visitors that ‘Studio Friday’ when Gary came in to be interviewed. He took an immediate shine to her, which pleased me.
My sister was painfully shy. A congenital medical condition had forced her to endure a good deal of surgery. Spending the day with me in a TV studio – and meeting the stars – was a huge treat.
Gary was convincingly charming. He paid assiduous attention to Sam. He was affectionate and gentle, making a great show of kissing her hand. She admired his gold bracelet, which was dripping with apparently real rubies.
He promised it to her – ‘later’ – along with ‘a ride in my RollsRoyce’, and plucked a red rose
from a vase on the table, which he presented to her. Sam blushed furiously. I could tell that she was loving it.
‘I was star-struck, but he was just like a big kid,’ she says now. Which reminds me of something Gary once said. ‘I love young people. They bring out the kid in me.’ He clearly interacted much better with youngsters than with those his own age.
In the studio, Gary charmed the floor manager. He was upbeat and animated, full of cheeky tales. We drank champagne in his dressing room afterwards, and I invited him to come out with the gang that night. Sam came too.
That was it. Gary and I were new best friends, joined at the hip. It was like having an adoring older brother.
In London, whenever we arranged to meet for brunch or lunch, dinner or tea it was always ‘can Sam come too?’
He made a huge fuss of Sam when- ever he saw her. He’d consume her in bear hugs, kiss her forehead and her hands, tickle, wrestle and tease.
I put this down to him being childishly over-friendly, like a big puppy. He’d sit next to her at dinner, pour her water, order her meal. He’d offer her wine, giggling like a little boy. I didn’t think him devious or manipulative. I never suspected a thing. He gained our trust, and he reeled us in.
Paedophiles select their victims carefully. They invest time and effort, grooming their victims often right under the noses of unsuspecting adults.
In my defence, I’d had a happily sheltered upbringing. I was young, and cosseted. To me, Gary was simply kind and avuncular. The only thing that assuages my guilt today is that Gary never molested my sister.
He never got the chance to. I never once left them alone.
There was no suggestion of romance between us. He never made a pass, nor would I have wanted him to. We never discussed sex. I had no idea that he watched child pornography, he wouldn’t have seen me for dust.
He told me out of the blue one day about his girlfriend, Alison Brown, a ‘leggy blonde’ whom he said he had met through her Glitter-fan parents. In a raspy voice eroded by Budweisers, vodka shots, clammy cocktails and German wine, he opened up about his early marriage, at 19, and having had children ‘way too young’.
And he told me that he’d cultivated Alison’s parents at their West Country pub, in order to get close to her. She had been only 14 when they ‘started’. So he’d had to ‘find a way’.
Instinct kicked in. I froze. We were both the worse for wear, and it was time to nudge him out. Gary wandered off into the early hours. I can’t remember seeing him again. But that ‘confession’ has haunted me ever since.
Cut to a decade or so later. A computer repair technician found 4,000 child pornography images on Gary’s PC, and reported him to the police. Alison Brown found the courage to expose their illegal relationship, and charges were brought for sex witha minor.
But the case was dismissed after it emerged she had a financial arrangement with a newspaper. Gary went to prison for the child pornography. Later, abuse of Asian children led to a Vietnamese jail. The rest is history.
For my sister, now the happy mother of twins, the impact of having known Gary Glitter hit home only years later.
She said: ‘I used to think he was lovely, always so kind to me, always over the top and playing practical jokes. He’d walk into a room and all heads would turn. Now, I just think of him as a very sad, sick old man.’
Today, ‘The Leader’ is behind bars. His youngest victim was under ten years old. The others were 12 and 13. The 70-year-old father of three will be sentenced on February 27.
With further alleged victims steeling themselves to give evidence, he faces spending the rest of his life in jail.
They say that it’s difficult to recognise a paedophile – and I know for certain that they’re right. Anyone could be a sexual predator, even your best friend. I’ve been there.
© Lesley-Ann Jones
‘I used to think he was lovely. Now I think of him
as a sad, sick old man’