Glitter maintains he did not molest girls

British rocker Gary Glitter today went before a Vietnamese court to appeal against his conviction and three-year prison sentence for molesting young girls at a seaside villa in southern Vietnam.

The 62-year-old singer – famed in the 1970s as an outrageous act decked out in bouffant wigs and sequin jump-suits – had been found guilty by a court on March 3 for committing obscene acts with girls ages 10 and 11.

He arrived today for his appeal before the People’s Supreme Court of Appeals in Ho Chi Minh City, wearing all-black clothes and aviator sunglasses and escorted by Vietnamese police.

“I’m innocent, of course,” he told dozens of foreign journalists as he walked into the courthouse. “I should be released.”

The three-judge panel was set to decide whether to uphold or overturn the verdict in a closed, one-day hearing, and the ruling was to be announced later today.

Glitter, real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was accused of kissing, fondling, and “engaging in other physical acts” with the girls at his rented villa in the seaside city of Vung Tau, about 80 miles south-east of Ho Chi Minh City.

He has maintained his innocence, saying he was teaching the girls English at his home and considered them “like his grandchildren”.

He has admitted to police that the 11-year-old girl slept in his room because she was afraid of ghosts, but denied committing any lewd acts, said his lawyer Le Thanh Kinh.

Kinh said Glitter was a victim of a conspiracy by the media, witnesses and the victims, but said that prosecutors reiterated that they had enough evidence to convict him.

Glitter accused British tabloids including The Sun and The News of the World of “damaging his reputation” and that “the evidence relating to his case looked like evidence from the newspapers”, Kinh said yesterday.

Glitter, who hit his musical peak in the 1970s, had hits with Leader of the Gang and Do You Wanna Touch Me, but is perhaps best known for his crowd-pleasing anthem “Rock and Roll (Part 2)”, which is still played at sporting events. Over the decades, his musical career slowly faded as he became passé by the 1990s.

In 1997 he took his computer to be repaired, and thousands of hardcore pornographic images of children were found on it. He was convicted in Britain in 1999 of possessing child pornography, and served half of a four-month jail term.

He later went to Cambodia and in 2002 was expelled from that country, though Cambodian officials did not specify a crime or file charges.

Asked today what he would do if he was released, Glitter responded dryly: “Have a beer.”

He said he planned to return to Britain.