Glitter 'sickens' judge
2006-03-03 11:59
Ba Ria, Vietnam - The Vietnamese judge who presided over Gary Glitter's childsex trial on Friday described the former rock star as "sick", as he gave graphic details of his sex crimes.
"When we speak of his behaviour, we understand right away that he has a sickness," Judge Hoang Thanh Tung told reporters after the British singer was jailed for three years.
"He is sick. He is abnormal," said the judge.
The faded 1970s pop star, born Paul Francis Gadd, was found guilty of "committing obscene acts with children" - two girls aged 11 and 12 - last year in the South China Sea resort town of Vung Tau.
In his summing up of the evidence inside the courtroom, the judge described scenes of groping, fondling, oral sex and as well as other more disturbing sex acts.
"The three-year jail term is, I think, appropriate for the consequences he left on the victims," said the judge.
Three other Vietnamese prostitutes whom Glitter had met while illegally living in Cambodia in 2003 and 2004 and brought to Vung Tau by taxi had helped Glitter procure the girls for paid sex, said the prosecutors' indictment.
The indictment also said pornographic material, including more than 2 300 images and cartoons and over 30 child pornography video clips, was found on Glitter's computer hard drive.
"With this sentence we have sent a signal to people like Gary Glitter who come to Vietnam for that crime," said Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Duc Trinh, deputy chief of the police investigation.
Glitter had maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings and claimed he was teaching the girls English, allowing them to stay overnight because they were scared of ghosts.
- AFP