Gary Glitter was 'always nice and polite' to Sally James because she had access to minors, the British television host has claimed.

Saturday Scene and Tiswas presenter Sally James, 73, hosted the ITV children's show from 1972 until its last episode in 1982, during which time she worked with Gary Glitter - real name Paul Gadd.

The programmes comprised light comedy sketches and welcomed famous faces to entertain youngsters, including the perverted popstar Glitter, 79, to Tiswas in 1981.

Looking back on his cameo with added clarity since the end of Glitter's career after a computer engineer discovered thousands of child porn images on his laptop during a service, Sally admitted that his 'polite' behaviour toward her was not without a 'sickening' ulterior motive.

Talking in a new ITV documentary, Sally said: 'If I think back now, it's no wonder that Gary was always nice and polite to me, because that gives him more access to children, more whatever it is that he was trying to gain access to, which makes it even more sickening when you think back.'




Gary Glitter was always 'nice and polite' to  Sally James to gain access to children, the TV presenter has claimed. Gary and Sally and pictured on Tiswas in 1981

However, at the time of airing, Sally admitted that Gary's sexual perversion went totally unsuspected on her behalf.

She explained: 'I don't think anyone would have thought anything weird about any of the guests and the children. It just wouldn't have crossed our minds.

Talking of Gary's time on the show, Sally said: 'They adored him. They really did adore him.

'His audience loved him. So, there would have been a lot of kids, maybe seven or eight, that young, and then all the teenagers that were allowed to go alone… so it was a very young audience.'

'We used to have 50 completely over excitable children every week, so by the time they would arrive and see buckets of water and custard pies lying around [there was] a level of excitement that was off the scale. He [Gary Glitter] was just really enjoying the moment.'

Glitter was raised by a single mother in Banbury, Oxfordshire. At the height of his career, Glittermania helped him rack up 12 consecutive Top 10 singles and he performed in front of sell-out crowds wearing sparkling, silver jumpsuits and platform heels. 

Hits like 'I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am),' released in 1972, still rake in a fortune in royalties and are streamed on apps like Spotify, where he has over 700,000 monthly listeners.

Glitter's fall from grace first came to light in November 1997 when a technician discovered thousands of horrific child abuse images on the hard drive of a laptop that he had taken in for repair in Bristol.




Talking in a new ITV documentary, Sally James (pictured) said it is 'sickening' to think back to Glitter's time at children's television shows 





Gary Glitter (pictured) - real name Paul Gadd - was jailed for 16 years in 2015 for sexually abusing three schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980





Looking back at clips from Tiswas, Sally admitted that Gary's sexual perversion went unsuspected 







In 1999, he was given four months in prison and put on the sex offenders register. He was next found hiding out on a yacht off Andalusia, Spain, where he was living under the pseudonym Larry Brilliante. Glitter next moved to Cuba in the Caribbean.