(UPDATE) Glitter falls ill, misses flight to London
UK rocker still at Bangkok airport -- Thai clinic
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 08:26:00 08/20/2008
Filed Under: Crime, Law & Justice
BANGKOK -- Former British glam rocker Gary Glitter fell ill during the night, missing his flight to London from Bangkok after he left Vietnam on his release from prison, a medical official told AFP Wednesday.
He was diagnosed with costochondritis, an inflammation of the ribs that causes chest pain, the official said. A doctor met Glitter in the airport, and he was apparently still in the international transit lounge, she added.
"The doctor prescribed a pain killer and issued a certificate saying he is fit to travel," the official at the clinic told AFP.
Glitter, 64, left Vietnam late Tuesday. He had been arrested there in late 2005 and convicted the following year of committing obscene acts with two girls then aged 11 and 12 in the southern resort town of Vung Tau.
The terms of Glitter's 2006 sentence called for his deportation upon his release.
He had been booked on an overnight Thai Airways flight to London, but didn't board the plane after he complained about not feeling well. He has not yet booked a new ticket with the airline, a Thai Airways official said.
Britain has not announced any outstanding charges against the man once famed for his flamboyant bouffant wigs and silver jumpsuits, and Glitter has said he would like to move to Hong Kong or Singapore.
"He has the right to go wherever he wants," said his lawyer Le Thanh Kinh.
But British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said Glitter, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, should not be allowed to leave Britain if he returns.
"We need to control him, and he will be (controlled), once he returns to this country," Smith told talkSPORT radio.
She said Glitter would be required to sign a sex offenders' register and notify authorities if he wants to travel abroad.
"It certainly would be my view that with the sort of record that he's got, he shouldn't be travelling anywhere in the world," she added.
"I want Gary Glitter to be controlled whilst he's here and I don't want him to be able to go anywhere else in the world in order to abuse children."
Glitter had several hits in the 1970s including "I'm The Leader Of The Gang (I Am!)" and "Do You Wanna Touch Me?"
The anthemic 1972 hit "Rock and Roll" is still often chanted in British and US sports stadiums.
He was arrested in Britain in 1997 after he took his computer to a repair store and hardcore child pornographic material was found on its hard drive. He was sentenced in 1999 to four months in prison, of which he served two.
Keen to avoid the media, Glitter reportedly moved to Cuba and then Cambodia, where he was expelled in 2002, allegedly for trawling for underage sex.
Having settled in Vietnam, where a British newspaper reported he was living with an underage girl, Glitter was arrested at Ho Chi Minh City airport in November 2005 while trying to leave for Thailand.
In March 2006 he was sentenced to three years in jail, the minimum term under Vietnamese law, which was later cut by three months.
Glitter, who paid compensation to the families of both victims, evaded the more serious charge of child rape, which carries a maximum penalty of death by firing squad in Vietnam.
The judge who presided over the closed trial afterwards called Glitter "sick" and "abnormal," detailing disturbing sexual acts with the children.
The singer maintained his innocence during the trial, blamed a media conspiracy and claimed he was teaching the girls English, allowing them to stay overnight because they were scared of ghosts.
Britain's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) this month called for tough action to stop Glitter from traveling abroad again if he returns to his home country.
|
