Gary Glitter Prosecuted When He Stopped Generating Value

Gary Glitter walked into Westminster Magistrates' Court via video link to face charges of indecent assault on a child in the 1970s.

Paul Gadd, his real name, is 78 and a relic of an era when he glammed himself into the charts with "Rock and Roll" and sold out arenas full of people who wanted exactly what he was selling. He disappeared from public life decades ago, reappeared once in Cambodia after serving time for child rape in Asia. And now finds himself prosecuted not because evidence surfaced yesterday but because the machinery that once protected him finally broke down.

Roman Polanski fled the United States in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a thirteen-year-old girl. He did this at the height of his power as a filmmaker, openly. And for forty-two years he continued making movies, winning awards, receiving invitations to festivals, and commanding the respect of an industry that decided his talent was more valuable than the crime.

The structural rule was simple, then as now. If you are useful enough to people with money and institutional power, they will debate whether justice should apply to you at all. They will split hairs about the word "alleged," insist that prosecution is persecution, and wait until the cost of harboring you exceeds the benefit. What changed between 1978 and now is not law, it's optics.

MeToo broke the industry's ability to absorb predatory men without reputational damage to everyone around them. Gatekeepers did not develop conscience — they calculated differently. Polanski remained employable in Europe because European institutions deemed the calculus worthwhile, while Glitter faces prosecution at 78 because British institutions have decided he costs them more than he generates. Watch what happens to aging men with power when they stop generating value before they're caught. That's not accountability, it's inventory management.