UK glam rocker Gary Glitter has been sentenced to 16 years' jail for the sexual abuse of three young girls between 1975 and 1980.

The 70-year-old singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was convicted of one count of attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 13.

"You did all of them real and lasting damage and you did so for no other reason than to obtain sexual gratification for yourself of a wholly improper kind," judge Alistair McCreath told the singer.

Gadd was at the height of his fame as a musician when he attacked his victims, and investigators said he targeted young girls who were in awe of him.

Prosecutor John Price earlier in the trial described how a drunken Gadd had tried to force himself on a girl, who was aged under 10 at the time, in the 1970s.

The victim only came forward 20 years after the incident when she saw that Gadd had admitted in 1999 to child pornography charges.

He also attacked two girls, aged 12 and 13, after inviting them to his dressing room without their mothers.

One victim, now in her 50s, told the court how Gadd, smelling of "booze and cigarettes", had put his arm over her, making her feel "uncomfortable".

A history of abuse

The singer was first jailed in 1999 when he admitted possessing 4,000 images of child pornography.

He was deported from Cambodia in 2002 over unspecified claims and convicted in Vietnam in 2006 of sexually abusing two girls, for which he was sentenced to three years in jail.

On returning to Britain, Gadd was placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Gadd is the latest in a series of high-profile people in Britain to be convicted of historic cases of sex abuse.

He was arrested as part of the Metropolitan Police's Operation Yewtree, launched in the wake of historic sex abuse claims against late BBC star Jimmy Savile, now accused of being a prolific sex offender.

British health minister Jeremy Hunt on Thursday said that Savile, who died in 2011, had abused 177 people from 1954 onwards, including 60 staff, patients and visitors at a hospital he raised funds for.

The government has launched a wide-ranging inquiry into how sexual abuse allegations were handled in the wake of a string of scandals involving child abuse at hospitals, care homes, churches and schools.

The probe will include a review of allegations of a ring of paedophiles in powerful political positions, rumours that first circulated in the 1980s but resurfaced following the Savile case.

AFP