Glitter on the run

Gary Glitter was on the run in Vietnam last night after being found living with a teenage girl in one of the country's sex resorts.

The 61-year-old former pop idol, jailed for four months for possessing child porn in 1999, packed two bags of belongings before fleeing his seafront villa with the young girl.

Glitter - real name Paul Gadd - left after a Sunday newspaper tracked him down and photographed him riding a 100cc motor scooter with his girlfriend, who is believed to be around 15 and under the age of consent.

Neighbours in the southern resort of Vung Tau, which is notorious as a destination for sex tourists from Western countries, said Gadd and the girl left within an hour of being confronted.

Their villa was deserted yesterday except for a maid and a pet mongrel.

The girl is not married but refers to herself as 'Paul's wife'.

Le Thi Muoi, 69, who lives opposite the villa, said: 'She never usually talks to me, but as she was leaving she said: "I'm going away with my husband".'

The pair are believed to have headed to the capital of Ho Chi Minh City two hours' drive north, where Gadd has friends, and then on into the Vietnamese countryside.

Glitter fled Britain after his release from jail in 2000 and stayed on a yacht off the coast of Spain before making a home on Cuba. But he was banished from Cuba in a crackdown on sex offenders.

Police in Vietnam were investigating how he slipped into Vung Tau and lived there apparently unnoticed for three months. The country has already said he would not be allowed to settle there and Vung Tau police official Vu Duc Trung said he could face deportation.

Foreigners are not allowed to live with Vietnamese girlfriends unless they are married, though it is common for bribes to be paid to police to turn a blind eye. The age of consent there is 18.

Gadd, who is bald and has a grey goatee beard, has been renting the villa with its 30ft swimming pool for the past three months.