Did you miss me while I was away?

There's a strange report in the Sunday People which claims that not only is Gary Glitter going to return to the UK soon, but taxpayers are going to have to protect him:

[U]nder European laws, the ageing baldie will be given round-the-clock police protection against revenge attacks, a free home and up to 12 minders to guarantee his safety.

Shockingly, UK taxpayers will have to foot the bill for Glitter's freeloading lifestyle, which experts reckon could run to more than £250,000.

Oh, really? So the figure comes from "experts"; they're working on an extrapolation from the European legislation which - rather than insisting on round-the-clock protection and a dozen minders - merely says, like all UK citizens, the government has a duty to protect him. That just means that the cops can't turn a blind eye if he's getting beaten up, not that he has to be treated like he's a Monet.

What's more, the paper even acknowledges that Glitter's return to the UK is going to be less 'free houses and minders', more a black maria and handcuffs:

He had served four-months of a seven-month stretch for downloading 4,000 appalling child pornography pictures from the internet.

But despite being ordered to live at his West Country home after his release in 2000, he did a runner to Cuba.

Oh, and there's the little manner of not signing the sex offender's register. The People concedes:

[H]e is almost certain to be automatically banged up for breaching his licence when he returns to Britain.

Of course, if the papers continue to suggest he's running up massive bills for taxpayers, and tacitly encourage vigilantism, then Glitter's safety will start to be threatened and there will be a need to protect him from the public purse. The People is effectively starting to bring about the situation it is supposedly raging against.