Paedophile pop star Gary Glitter has been recalled to prison following a breach of his licence conditions less than six weeks after being released.
The 78-year-old, who had a string of chart hits in the 1970s, had been freed in February after being jailed in 2015 for sexually abusing three schoolgirls.
He was automatically released from HMP The Verne – a low-security category C jail in Portland, Dorset – following eight years behind bars, having served half of his 16-year fixed-term determinate sentence.
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.”
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) did not give details of the breach, but The Sun reported he was caught trying to access the dark web.
Footage last week showed the disgraced glam rock singer staring at a mobile phone while reportedly in his bail hostel.
The MoJ had said on his release that he would face “some of the strictest licence conditions” and that if he flouted them at any point he could go back behind bars.
Following his relocation to the hostel, protesters gathered outside the accommodation reportedly shouting demands for him to be removed from their neighbourhood.
It came as Richard Scorer, head of abuse law at Slater and Gordon, which represents one of Glitter’s victims, said his release was “particularly distressing and traumatic” for those he attacked.
The sex offender was at the height of his fame when he preyed on his victims, who thought no-one would believe their claims because of his celebrity status.
His third victim was less than 10 years old when he crept into her bed and tried to rape her in 1975.
The allegations only came to light nearly 40 years later when Glitter became the first person to be arrested under Operation Yewtree – the investigation launched by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
His fall from grace occurred years earlier after he admitted possessing 4,000 child pornography images and was jailed for four months in 1999.
In 2002, he was expelled from Cambodia amid reports of sex crime allegations, and in March 2006 he was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam and spent two-and-a-half years in jail.
