Glitter faces child sex charges

FORMER pop star Gary Glitter is to be charged with eight sex offences involving underage girls, the UK Crown Prosecution Service has announced.

Glitter, 70, whose real name is Paul Gadd, became the first person to be arrested as part of Operation Yewtree, the national investigation launched in the wake of abuse claims against Jimmy Savile, when he was held at his home in central London in October 2012.

He was later released on police bail, which was extended in March this year.

Announcing the decision to charge him Baljit Ubhey, Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS London, said the evidence had been carefully considered.

"He was arrested on 28 October 2012 over allegations of sexual offences and the police have been providing material to the CPS since July 2013, with the most recent material submitted in March 2014.

"Having completed our review, we have concluded, in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors, that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest for Mr Gadd to be charged with eight offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956."

The charges relate to two female complainants who were aged between 12 and 14 at the time of the alleged offending between 1977 and 1980.

"We have also decided that no further action should be taken in relation to five allegations made by two further complainants as we determined there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction."

Glitter is accused of four counts of indecent assault involving the first complainant, who was aged 12 or 13 at the time, between 31 January and 31 May 1977.

He is also accused of one count of "administering a drug or other thing in order to facilitate sexual intercourse" and one count of sexual intercourse with a girl under 13 between the same dates.

He is also charged with two counts of indecent assault between 1 October 1979 and 31 December 1980 involving the second complainant, who was aged 13 or 14 at the time.

Glitter is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on June 19.

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BBC staff warned of redundancies

BBC staff have been warned that a "significant" number of redundancies are likely to be made in the corporation's news department.

Director of news and current affairs, James Harding, said in an email to staff that the division had to make savings of "tens of millions of pounds" as part of the so-called Delivering Quality First programme.

The former editor of The Times, who joined the BBC last August, said he would share his proposals in July, having taken a "long, hard look" at the budgets over the past couple of months.

"I am afraid that there is no escaping the fact that there are likely to be a significant number of redundancies - most of our costs are tied up in people so there is limited scope for other big savings elsewhere," he said.

There has been speculation that between 500-600 jobs could be cut.

A BBC spokesman said they are working to deliver savings of STG800 million ($A1.46 billion) a year by 2016/17 and that there are difficult decisions ahead.

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said NUJ members are already gearing up to ballot for industrial action over what the BBC has tried to pass off as a pay offer.

"Cutting 500 jobs in areas of news that are badly over-stretched, where staff are already suffering unacceptably high levels of stress and pressure and in a working environment where bullying has been rife is wholly unacceptable and will inevitably damage the quality of journalism and programming," she said.

"If senior salaries were capped at 150,000 - massive wages by anyone's reckoning, and more than enough for the prime minister - an immediate and annual saving of 20 million would be made, money that could go straight into quality programming, the one thing that licence fee payers actually care about."

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