Gary Glitter recalled to prison after ‘using smartphone to ask about Dark Web’
Convicted paedophile Gary Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, has been recalled to prison following a video where he appeared to ask about accessing the Dark Web.
The former musician was recorded discussing the private browser DuckDuckGo before saying 'let's try and find this Onion', seemingly a reference to a Dark Web browser.
The Dark Web is part of the internet inaccessible via regular internet browsers and requires specialist ones to get onto.
Sites on the Dark Web are used for a number of illicit and illegal reasons, including buying drugs and accessing child pornography.
Advert
The Probation Service confirmed that Paul Gadd would be returning to custody today (13 March) after breaching his licence conditions, with the Parole Board in charge of determining whether he will be re-released.
A Probation Service spokesperson said: "Protecting the public is our number one priority. That’s why we set tough licence conditions and when offenders breach them, we don’t hesitate to return them to custody."
Sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2015, the convicted paedophile was released from HMP The Verne last month and was kept on bail at a hostel.
He had a number of conditions placed upon him which could result in an immediate return to prison if he broke any of them, and the footage showing him attempting to access the Dark Web has been ruled as a breach.
The convicted paedophile was first jailed for four months in 1999 after admitting to the possession of over 4,000 child pornography images.
He then received a 16 year sentence in 2015 for a series of incidents which occurred in the 1970s where he attempted to lure young girls aged 12 and 13 away from their mothers and into his dressing room.
Glitter's third victim who he attempted to rape was aged younger than 10-years-old when the attack occurred in 1975.
He had also been jailed in 2006 for sexually abusing two girls in Vietnam, while in 2002 he had been expelled from Cambodia over allegations of committing sex crimes.
Glitter was convicted as part of Operation Yewtree, the investigation into historic sex offences following the revelation of Jimmy Saville's extensive criminal activity.
During his sentencing Glitter was told by a judge that there had been no evidence of him atoning for his actions, and he was found found guilty of one count of attempted rape, one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under 13, and four counts of indecent assault.
Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland had told the Daily Mail he hoped that the Ministry of Justice 'takes swift action to deal with this' as he 'thought there would be licence conditions prohibiting this sort of activity'.
Joe Harker