HONG-KONG:GARY GLITTER was refused entry to Hong Kong from Thailand last night after Thai officials had earlier failed to persuade the disgraced singer to board a flight to London.
He had been due to arrive in Britain yesterday after being deported from Vietnam having served a sentence for child abuse, but he refused to board a connecting flight to London after the plane touched down in Bangkok.
The 64-year-old singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was released by Vietnam after serving two years and nine months of a three-year sentence for sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11.
He claimed he had a heart attack in a hotel room at Bangkok airport, but after he was seen by a doctor his demands to be taken to hospital were rejected. He spent about 20 hours in the transit lounge as Thai officials tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to board a flight to London.
Col Puttipong Musikul, of the Thai immigration police, said Gadd had been in "a great mood, laughing and chatting with our negotiators", who were trying to persuade him to change his mind.
Just before 10pm local time, he finally boarded a flight to Hong Kong. The Chinese authorities later informed their UK counterparts that they had barred him from entry after his arrival in Hong Kong.
A spokesman for the UK foreign office in London said: "It is a matter for the Chinese authorities to decide what action they take now."
Sources said the Chinese authorities were considering returning Gadd to Thailand. Officials in Bangkok had earlier been adamant that he could not enter Thailand and had threatened to put him in a detention centre if he refused to leave the country.
On his arrival in Thailand, Gadd had refused to get on the plane for Britain, claiming he was being harassed by the media. "I am not getting back on the plane with all the press there," he said. "And I'm not going to London. You can't make me. I have done my time. I am a free man."
A UK home office spokeswoman said the government could not force him to return, and denied claims that he had been able to avoid returning to the UK after the home office issued him with a passport while he was still in jail. The spokeswoman said Gadd had been issued with a passport in 2002 and the only method by which the government could remove an individual's passport was through the use of the royal prerogative.
If and when he arrives in the UK, Gadd will be met at the airport by police officers and served with an order which will put him on the sex offenders' register.
As Gadd was refusing to board the plane to Britain, UK home secretary Jacqui Smith announced a crackdown on the movements of paedophiles, including increasing from six months to five years the duration of travel orders which prevent convicted paedophiles from travelling abroad.
Gadd was convicted of downloading child pornography in the UK in 1999. He served two months of a four-month sentence.
He then left the country and moved to Spain and Cuba before travelling to southeast Asia. He was expelled from Cambodia in 2002 after the government deemed he posed "a threat to the security of the country".
He was arrested in November 2005 as he tried to board a flight to Thailand from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Gadd was investigated on suspicion of the rape of minors, but only charged with obscene acts. He insisted he was innocent, claiming he was teaching the two girls English, but was convicted and sentenced to three years in jail in March 2006. - ( Guardian service)