Gary Glitter trial told of attack on sleeping girl

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/20/gary-glitter-trial-attack-sleeping-girl-abuse

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At the height of his fame as a glam rock star, a drunken Gary Glitter crept into the bed of a sleeping child, then aged eight, and tried to rape her, a court was told on Monday.

The singer gave champagne to another child, a 12-year-old fan, after a concert before subjecting her to a “prolonged episode of sexual abuse” in his hotel suite in the Holiday Inn in Leicester in 1977. Two years later, in an alleged assault which the prosecution said had “many similarities” to the one in Leicester, he assaulted a 13-year-old fan after a concert at Bailey’s nightclub in Watford.

Opening the case for the prosecution, John Price, QC, told the jury that the eight-year-old victim only escaped by shrinking so far away from him she fell into the envelope formed between the sheets and the blankets, before locking herself in a bathroom when he fell asleep. Price said the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, remembered a “horrible” smell of alcohol and tobacco, as well as a pain so intense she thought she was bleeding. It was, he said, “a clear and unmistakable attempt to rape her”.

He said: “She only managed to prevent him from succeeding by moving away from him in the bed until she had moved so far, that she remembers she fell into the ‘envelope’ or ‘cocoon’ formed at the edge of the bed by the fact that the covers and blankets had been tucked beneath the mattress.”

The next day, Price told Southwark crown court, the singer said nothing about the alleged assault and gave the child chocolate.

Glitter, 70, whose real name is Paul Gadd, is accused of a series of child sex offences, which are alleged to have taken place in the 1970s and 1980s. He denies all 10 charges against him.

Price told the jury that attempted rape normally required proof of an absence of consent, but it did not apply in the case of the sleeping child.

“She was so very young at the time that she did not in fact have the capacity to consent to such an act. She did not consent to it because she was simply too young to comprehend the true nature of what was occurring,” he said.

About four years later, Gadd pushed the girl on to a bed, asking her for a cuddle and asking if she remembered what happened, it is alleged. While she confided in her mother and friends, she did not report the attempted rape to police until 1998 after Gadd was arrested on 18 November 1997 on charges of possessing images of child abuse.

Price said the images “depicted a full range of sexual activity taking place between adult men and very young children”.

He said the victim felt she now had “a better chance that she might be believed when accusing so famous and popular a man of so dreadful a crime”. On 12 November 1999, Glitter pleaded guilty to the charges relating to the images.

Price told the jury that there were similarities between Glitter’s alleged sexual assaults of two young fans after concerts. In the first case, of the 12-year-old, he is accused of sexually assaulting her more than once. She was able to pinpoint the date of the second time, Price said, because she remembers it coincided with the occasion of her first ever period.

Both girls had been taken to the concert by their mothers.

“In each case, the mother was with her daughter at the introduction to Mr Gadd and, in each case, albeit in different circumstances, each of the two mothers was prevailed upon to leave their daughter alone with him.”Price said there was “no doubt” that the 12-year-old, who was now 50, attended the concerts, as photographs showed her there, some of which also showed ice buckets of champagne.

Glitter’s alleged third victim was also attacked backstage after one of his performances in another club called Baileys, in Watford, Hertfordshire.

Glitter allegedly kissed the girl and “touched her between the legs” after asking the schoolgirl’s mother to leave them alone.

Price told jurors: “The issue presented for your decision in the case of the complaints of these two women – as they now are – is again a stark decision.

“Have both of them chosen to subject themselves to the ordeal of giving evidence in a public court about how a famous man came to indulge himself sexually with them whilst they were each still a child simply because that is what happened, or are they here falsely to accuse him?” Gadd is accused of one count of attempted rape and another of indecent assault on a girl under the age of 13.

In relation to a second complainant, he is charged with four counts of indecent assault when she was under the age of 13 in 1977 and of plying her with alcohol with the intention to “stupefy or overpower” her to have sex with him. In connection with a third complainant, who was under the age of 16, he is charged with two counts of indecent assault between October 1979 and December 1980.

Dressed in a navy suit jacket, grey and dark blue striped jumper and wearing a cream and black patterned scarf, the singer stared straight ahead during proceedings, occasionally shaking his head. He is hard of hearing so was assisted by two lip-reading interpreters.