Gary Glitter Gets Three Years

Former British glam rocker Gary Glitter was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday for molesting two Vietnamese girls, ages 10 and 11, at his rented home in southern Vung Tau last year.

"I haven't done anything," the sixty-one-year-old Glitter (born Paul Francis Gadd) said after the verdict was read. "I'm innocent."

The judge, who condemned the rocker for "disgusting and sick" behavior, said Glitter would be deported to Britain after serving his sentence and must pay $320 to each girl's family in addition to court fees. Glitter was given the minimum sentence, after initially facing up to seven years of prison time, because of the $2000 "compensation" he paid to each girl's family in December.

Glitter, who scored his biggest U.S. hit in 1972 with "Rock & Roll Part 2," was convicted in Britain of possessing child pornography in 1999 and served two months of a four-month jail sentence. He later moved to Cambodia, where he was blacklisted in 2002 for undisclosed reasons.

Glitter has fifteen days to appeal the ruling.

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

More Song Stories entries »

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