Enlarge imageBANGKOK (Reuters) - Shamed glam rocker Gary Glitter was stuck at Bangkok airport on Wednesday after refusing to board a flight to Britain following his deportation from Vietnam, where he had spent nearly three years in prison for child sex abuse.
Staff at the Louis Tavern, a small airside transit lounge rest point, said Glitter was still there on Wednesday morning.
Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed the 64-year-old Briton’s refusal to board the flight, scheduled to leave Thailand around 1 a.m. on Wednesday (7 p.m. British time on Tuesday).
"The last information we have is that shortly before the flight to the UK departed he declined to board. We were last aware that he remained in transit," a spokesman said.
British newspapers, who had reporters on the plane with Glitter as he left
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Vietnam, said he had collapsed in a bedroom at the Tavern, complaining of heart problems and demanding to be taken to hospital.He had a series of confrontations with British embassy officials and Thai immigration police, who refused him entry to Thailand because of his conviction in Vietnam for child sex offences, the newspapers reported.
Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was released from prison in communist Vietnam on Tuesday.
He was whisked away from Thu Duc prison, 190 km (120 miles) north of Ho Chi Minh City, in a police jeep with blacked-out windows before being put on a plane to Bangkok, with an onward connection to London.
He rose to fame in the 1970s with a bouffant hairstyle, make-up, high heels and "glam rock" stage performances. His hits included "Rock and Roll (Parts 1 & 2)" and "I Love You Love Me Love", "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)" and "I’m the Leader of the Gang (I am)".
(Reporting by Prapan Changkaew; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Alan Raybould)
