London: Former glam rocker Gary Glitter has been released on bail after being arrested on Sunday by police investigating sexual abuse allegations against the late British TV star Jimmy Savile that have plunged the BBC into crisis.
The 1970s pop star will appear before officers in mid-December as part of the investigation police have termed “Savile and others”, according to a Scotland Yard statement.
Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, is the first person arrested in an investigation which has snowballed since claims that Savile molested underage girls were aired in a television documentary earlier this month.
The king of the glam rock era with a string of stomping hits, has served a jail term in Britain for downloading child pornography and in Vietnam for child sex offences.
Wearing a hat, dark glasses and a winter coat, 68-year-old Glitter was seen being escorted from his central London home into a waiting vehicle early Sunday.
“Officers working on Operation Yewtree have today arrested a man in his 60s in connection with the investigation,” a Scotland Yard spokesman said.
“The man, from London, was arrested at approximately 7.15am (0715 GMT) on suspicion of sexual offences, and has been taken into custody at a London police station.”
The operation has identified around 300 possible victims of Savile over a 40-year period, which would make the eccentric BBC presenter one of the worst sex offenders in British history.
The claims against Savile have plunged the BBC into crisis and destroyed the reputation of a man who, with his garish tracksuits and ever-present cigar, was one of the most famous faces on British television for decades.
Savile, who died on October 29 last year aged 84, also single-handedly raised tens of millions of pounds for charity.
The claims against him in an ITV documentary gave dozens of others the courage to come forward to police with allegations about Savile and others involved with him who are still alive.
Savile’s great-niece on Sunday told Sky News she was abused twice by the DJ and that the family turned a blind eye to her claims.
“They both happened during a family gathering,” said Caroline Robinson, 49.
“Jimmy got it down to perfection, where he managed to do it and what he did and nobody noticed.
“After it happened when I was 12, I spoke to my grandmother, I told her what Jimmy had done. Her reply was, ‘It’s only Jimmy, it doesn’t matter, I’ll sort it out’.”
Police on Sunday said that Savile’s house in Glencoe, Scotland, had been vandalised.
“Jimmy the beast” was written on the wall and the door was badly damaged.
Public relations guru Max Clifford claimed dozens of celebrities from the period have contacted him in recent days because they are “frightened” of being implicated in the widening scandal.
He said the stars were worried because at their peak they had lived a hedonistic lifestyle where young girls threw themselves at them but they “never asked for anybody’s birth certificate”.
The Vatican said on Sunday it regretted conferring a papal knighthood on Savile in 1990, but that there was no way to revoke the honour.
The Vatican is “deeply saddened” that Savile was made a knight commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II, an honour that “in the light of recent information, should certainly not have been conferred”, said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.
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