NO WORD IF R. KELLY WAS DRIVING THE GETAWAY CAR
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk Gary Glitter was on the run in Vietnam last night after being found living with a teenage girl in one of the country’s sex resorts.
The 61-year-old former pop idol, jailed for four months for possessing child porn in 1999, packed two bags of belongings before fleeing his seafront villa with the young girl.
Glitter – real name Paul Gadd – left after a Sunday newspaper tracked him down and photographed him riding a 100cc motor scooter with his girlfriend, who is believed to be around 15 and under the age of consent.
Neighbours in the southern resort of Vung Tau, which is notorious as a destination for sex tourists from Western countries, said Gadd and the girl left within an hour of being confronted.
Their villa was deserted yesterday except for a maid and a pet mongrel.
The girl is not married but refers to herself as ‘Paul’s wife’.
Le Thi Muoi, 69, who lives opposite the villa, said: ‘She never usually talks to me, but as she was leaving she said: "I’m going away with my husband".’
The pair are believed to have headed to the capital of Ho Chi Minh City two hours’ drive north, where Gadd has friends, and then on into the Vietnamese countryside.
Glitter fled Britain after his release from jail in 2000 and stayed on a yacht off the coast of Spain before making a home on Cuba. But he was banished from Cuba in a crackdown on sex offenders.
Police in Vietnam were investigating how he slipped into Vung Tau and lived there apparently unnoticed for three months. The country has already said he would not be allowed to settle there and Vung Tau police official Vu Duc Trung said he could face deportation.
Foreigners are not allowed to live with Vietnamese girlfriends unless they are married, though it is common for bribes to be paid to police to turn a blind eye. The age of consent there is 18.
Gadd, who is bald and has a grey goatee beard, has been renting the villa with its 30ft swimming pool for the past three months.
Before that, he stayed regularly in hotels as he criss-crossed the border with Cambodia while battling to avoid deportation.
He was also seen in Ho Chi Minh City on a number of occasions, usually venturing out to watch bands play. Gadd and his girlfriend, who divides her time between staying with him and staying with her parents and family in a rural area near the Cambodian border, lived a hermit-style existence when they first moved into the Vung Tau.
But in recent weeks he went out at least three times to a bar where live music was played. After drinking heavily, he began singing loudly and tunelessly on one occasion, annoying customers.
Gadd was warned by staff that he would be kicked out when he attempted to take the guitar from a musician, telling him he would ‘show him how to play’.
Gabriel Ross, manager of the bar, said he later asked Gadd not to bring his young girlfriend in because she looked ‘seriously underage’.
When he was confronted by the newspaper, Gadd said: ‘Why do you people keep hounding me? I’ve served my sentence. I just want to be left alone.
‘I’m not doing anything wrong here. I’m not hurting anyone. I’m living a quiet life. If people find out I’m here, I’ll move on again to another country. I’ll just keep moving until no one can find me anymore.’
He added: ‘I’ve had 40 years of this. I just want to get on with my life now.’
