Passport bungle lets Gary Glitter catch flight to Hong Kong

Gary Glitter was on a flight to Hong Kong tonight after a Home Office blunder left him free to travel the world.

The convicted paedophile had been due to fly to Heathrow this morning. But he refused to get on the jet and remained at Bangkok airport while Thai officials tried to persuade him to leave.

Eventually he caught a flight to Hong Kong. His move is likely to provoke a diplomatic incident with China during the Olympic Games.

Glitter, 64, was free to travel because the Home Office issued him with a new passport in November 2002 - despite being a convicted paedophile who had already left Cambodia after being described as "undesirable" by police and banned from entering Cuba because of his child sex activities.

The British Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, issued the passport which allowed him to travel freely, despite having the power to turn down passport applications if it is not "in the public interest", on the basis of somebody's past behaviour and likely future conduct.

He was eventually jailed in March 2006 in Vietnam for abusing two girls aged 11 and 12 after being arrested in November 2005.

It means he can travel to any country that will have him. Without it he would have had to go straight back to Britain where he would be strictly monitored.

He flew to Bangkok airport after his release from Vietnam.

Glitter, who has a personal fortune of £5 million, was spotted in the airport terminal lounge today laughing and joking as he mulled over his options.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith used what was expected to be Glitter's return to the UK to announce a new crackdown on paedophiles, including forcing sex offenders to have their passports renewed annually. Her proposals, denounced as a stunt by the Tories, appeared to backfire when it was revealed the only reason Glitter remained in south-east Asia was because the Home Office granted him the new passport in 2002. Opposition MPs branded the decision to give him a passport "farcical".

There was further Home Office confusion over the passport as officials first said the British consulate in Ho Chi Minh City had issued a passport to him in November 2007 - while he was in jail. Senior officials later denied the report.

Glitter arrived at Bangkok airport yesterday. Thai police issued him with an ultimatum - fly out of Thailand by the end of the day or be sent to a deportation centre outside Bangkok - described as "one of the worst jails in Asia".

A British law enforcement officer - believed to be from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre - tried to persuade Glitter to return to the UK on a flight tonight but had no power to force him to do so.

A protection centre spokesman, while refusing to discuss the specific case, said: "With a current full passport and no offences under investigation, there is nothing to compel a paedophile to get on a plane and return to Britain.

"The UK has one of the strongest management regimes for sex offenders in the world. British sex offenders are better managed in the UK where they can be monitored according to the risk they pose to the public."

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: "This is becoming farcical. If the Government put as much effort into doing simple tasks as they did trying to spin a good story out of a very serious situation, we may not be in this position."

The Home Office refused to discuss the case. But a source said had Glitter been issued with a letter of transit - rather than a full passport - he would have had to return to the UK. Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, spent last night in a £100-a-night room at the airport, using a shared bathroom, before he was evicted by the Thai authorities.

Glitter, who had been booked on a London-bound flight due to arrive at seven this morning, refused to go on board after complaining of earache. He also refused to leave on subsequent direct flights to Heathrow.

Colonel Puttipong Musikul, of Thai immigration police, said: "Now we are talking and he seems to be in a great mood - laughing and enjoying chatting with our negotiators. It's kind of breaking the ice first before asking him to change his mind."

Glitter had said he was frightened of returning to Britain and claimed he wanted to go to Singapore or Hong Kong to revive his music career.

He was convicted of possessing child pornography in Britain in 1999 and served two months of a four-month sentence. Glitter went to live in Cuba and then Cambodia from where he was expelled in 2002 over unspecified allegations before settling in Vietnam.

At the weekend his former girlfriend Yudania Martinez, who had a child Gary Jnr with Glitter, said she would welcome him back to Cuba.

Police Major General Phongdej Chaiprawat said Glitter was confined to a transit lounge at the airport in Bangkok.

"We will not allow him to enter the country," he said.