FORMER pop star Gary Glitter, released from a Vietnamese jail this week after serving a sentence for child sex abuse, was refused entry to Hong Kong last night by Chinese authorities.
Glitter, who is travelling under his real name Paul Gadd, had boarded a Thai Airways flight from Thailand to the city yesterday afternoon.
In what is becoming a farcical merry-go-round as the disgraced pop star desperately bids to avoid returning
to the UK, Chinese authorities refused to grant him entry.
He was earlier deported from Vietnam after spending almost three years in jail for sexually abusing two girls. He had arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, to catch a connecting flight to the UK on Tuesday night.
A British Embassy duty officer and an officer of Scotland Yard's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) had flown in to try and convince him to get on the flight to Heathrow.
However, he refused to board the plane, claiming he was suffering heart problems.
He was treated and declared fit to fly. Thai police insisted they would be "deporting him to his home country, England, unconditionally".
Instead, he boarded a Thai Airways flight to the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, having claimed he wanted to go to an Asian nation. It is understood 19 countries have said they would refuse Glitter entry.
Thai Airways yesterday confirmed Glitter left Bangkok on flight TG 602, which landed in Hong Kong at 11pm local time.
On board the flight, eyewitnesses said he had begun arranging his VIP welcome in the former British colony. "I am quite famous and hard of hearing. Please can you arrange for an escort for me at the other end? There may be some press there," he was reported as saying.
However, he was met by Cathay Pacific staff and an immigration official. Last night, it was not immediately clear what his next move would be.
A spokesman for Hong Kong Airport said: "We cannot comment on whether an individual will be allowed access to the country."
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "It's up to the Chinese authorities to decide whether they allow him to enter."
Glitter served two years and nine months of a three-year sentence for abusing two girls aged ten and 11 in Vietnam.
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has said that Britain could not enforce Glitter's return If he arrives in the UK, he will be met at the airport by police officers and served with an order which effectively will put him on the sex offenders register.
Ms Smith said: "What I am concerned about is, whoever the individual sex offender is, that we have in place the necessary provisions to monitor them."
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