Time was, when Gary Glitter asked you "D'you wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang? D'you wanna be in my gang?" the only logical answer to his request was "Oh yeah!"
Now, though, whenever Gary Glitter asks "D'you wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang? D'you wanna be in my gang?" the only response he gets is a stunned silence followed by a polite but firm changing of conversational subject. That happens to Gary Glitter everywhere – especially in Vietnam, where Gary Glitter had his appeal against child molestation thrown out yesterday.
Gary Glitter was never the most convincing pop-star. A tiny man with eyebrows like Lea from Big Brother in a giant wig who either sang songs about him being the leader of the gang or us wanting to touch him or rock and roll – hey! – rock and roll was never going to be the world's most conventional popstar. Not even the – ahem – credibility of Oasis nicking one of his songs and passing it off as their own on their second album stopped Gary Glitter from being a joke performer. But what did you expect from a man whose surname is rhyming slang for arse?
Gary Glitter is also one of the only people with such a lack of foresight that they – following a spell in prison for possessing a number of "hardcore, sick and degrading" child porn images on his computer in 1999 – would think about running off to Vietnam, the country that has all but trademarked the phrase "me so horny, me love you long time." And then wonder what all the fuss is about when he's arrested for child molestation.
In March, Gary Glitter was convicted of sexually molesting two Vietnamese girls aged 10 and 11, although Glitter has always denied these charges, claiming that one of the girls – who he considered himself to be a grandfather figure to – had slept in his room only because she was "afraid of ghosts." And yesterday Gary Glitter took his appeal to court. Where it was thrown out very quickly. Truong Vinh Thuy, one of the three judges who heard the appeal in the People's Supreme Court of Appeals in Ho Chi Minh City stated that the court:
"rejects the appeal of the accused and sentences him to three years in prison for obscene acts with children."
Needless to say, Gary Glitter wasn't too impressed at the verdict, shouting at the international journalists at the court:
"There was no defence allowed!"
On the plus side, that gives us three years preparation for the big 2009 Gary Glitter comeback tour, provisionally titled The Do You Wanna Touch Me There? No, I Probably Thought Not But There's No Harm In Asking Tour.
Read more:
Gary Glitter Loses Appeal In Vietnam – Times
[story by Stuart Heritage]