Court papers claim Glitter has raked in at least £1million in royalties from his back catalogue and investigators believe he is hiding his cash offshore and giving it to his son
Gary Glitter has allegedly tried to hide his fortune(Image: PA)
Pop paedophile Gary Glitter has allegedly tried to hide his fortune from a victim he owes compensation, after giving his son more than £130,000, the Daily Mirror can reveal.
Glitter, 81, claims he in unable to pay the woman because he is penniless despite raking in at least £1million in royalties in the last three decades, court papers claim. He was declared bankrupt last year after failing to hand over £508,000 High Court damages for raping her when she was 12. Her lawyers are now trying to seize his assets.
Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, gave his son, also called Paul, £138,896 from his pension income since it first emerged publicly that she was suing him, the documents state.
Lawyers say they have evidence that “attempts have been made to divert” the paedophile’s assets from his estate, including requests that his pension payments go to his son.
The pair were previously reported to have fallen out after Glitter was first convicted of child sex offences in 1999. But the papers claim the child of Glitter’s marriage to Ann Murton plays an active role in managing his dad’s cash while occasionally visiting him in HMP Channings Wood, not far from his Devon home.
Lawyers have been forced to launch enforcement action against Glitter, effectively making him bankrupt, so an insolvency practitioner could be appointed to search for the assets. Matt Carter and Ed Thomas of Mazars, the international accounting and advisory firm, have been appointed joint trustees in the bankruptcy.
They accuse Glitter of a “lack of candour and assistance” in failing to cooperate with investigators and say he has repeatedly lied to officials, documents lodged at Bristol County Court reveal. He founded Machmain Limited in 1987 to manage royalties and transferred his shares to a Caribbean tax haven firm in 2005 shortly after he was arrested in Vietnam for child sex offences.
In November 2023 Machmain paid off a mortgage on his £2million, sixth-floor flat in a Victorian red brick mansion block near Baker Street in central London. His son, now 61, became a “person with significant control” and director on the board last October.
A total of £988,891 has been paid to Machmain by the Performing Rights Society for royalties from 256 of Glitter’s songs since 1996, the papers claim. The paedophile’s son told investigators last October that further payments are due from royalty collection firms PPL and Sound Exchange.
His song Rock and Roll Part 2 featured in 2019 film Joker giving him royalties based on how well the film did in cinemas, plus DVD sales and purchases of the film’s soundtrack. The 1972 hit, the B-side to single Rock and Roll, plays in a key scene when Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker dances down a long flight of steps as he fully transforms into the villain.
Oasis borrowed his lyric ‘Hello, hello, it’s good to be back’ on the opening track of their second album and Glitter’s records were regularly played at US ice hockey games. A barrister for the trustees said in February: “If the ultimate beneficial owner of the Machmain Limited shares is [Glitter], the property and royalty income being paid to Machmain Limited should properly be included as part of [his] bankruptcy estate. However, the [Glitter] has not been forthcoming about this ownership.
“When interviewed by the Trustees, he referred to the property as a ‘company apartment’ and then said he transferred the shares in Machmain Limited to his son.” It adds: “Other evidence also suggests that Machmain Limited is in effect used as a vehicle through which the Respondent’s assets are held. The lack of candour and assistance from [Glitter] regarding the true ownership of Machmain Limited again demonstrates that he is failing to cooperate with the Trustees as he’s required to do.”
When he was made bankrupt in March 2025, Glitter told the Insolvency Service he had no bank account, cash, property interests or income, the documents reveal. But lawyers searching for his fortune say “significant funds” were paid in and out of a NatWest account he had between 2006 and 2008.
They claim he requested money be paid out of his prison account to an unidentified “outside account” in November 2024. Investigators said they have also found evidence he has used a Swiss bank account to syphon his pension payments after he made a request to send money to UBS Bank Zurich from Scottish Equitable in 2016.
Glitter went to Cambodia where he lived on and off before being expelled in 2002 after reportedly trawling for child sex.
Four years later he was sentenced to three years in Vietnam for sexually abusing two girls aged 11 and 12. Glitter was jailed in the UK in 2015 for sexually abusing three girls. He was released in 2023 after serving half of his 16-year sentence.
But within weeks, he was recalled to The Verne prison in Dorset – a sex offender unit – for breaching licence conditions by allegedly downloading images of children. He is due to have another parole hearing next year.
