A sensible view from Matthew Norman, in last week's Independent.

And so it goes on, this unutterably obscene danse macabre, as The Sun chases Gary Glitter across the country in what seems ever less mistakably a premeditated attempt to bring about his death by his own hand or that of a reader. "You Can Run But You Can't Hide" was one splash headline last week, which was an oddity given Rebekah Wade's obsession with the subject. You'd have thought she might be aware of something called the Sex Offenders Register, which makes hiding very difficult even for paedophiles whose photos aren't in The Sun every day, but apparently not.


We've all witnessed some horrendous abuses of power by that newspaper down the decades, but nothing, I think, as viscerally repulsive as this. A privacy law is the last thing most of us instinctively want, but if there is no other workable method of preventing psychotic bullies from deliberately endangering the safety of those whom they judge to deserve none, it becomes very difficult to resist. We already have a nebulous version, of course, as embedded in the case law handed down by that judicial sweetheart, Mr Justice Eady, in the matter of Max Mosley and the News of the World. It isn't easy to conceive of any action in which he'd find for a newspaper, and while a privacy action brought by a paedophile might present a dilemma, Mr Glitter should bring such a case as soon as possible.

This unending vision of the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable, as George Galloway borrowed from Wilde to put it on his magnificent TalkSport radio phone-in, has endured more than long enough. It needs to end before The Sun devotes another front page to a self-congratulatory paean to its heroic contribution to his violent death.

www.independent.co.uk/news/media/comment...ust-stop-914414.html

I couldn't agree more. This is becoming a terrible abuse of the newspaper's power-despite what anyone thinks of GG. it's one of the worst I think I've ever seen.

The other element of this-as a register "sex offendor' Glitter's details are available to police who are the only ones who should have this knowledge ( despite me still questioning what purpose this status really does serve-is there a "burgulars's regster" etc and if not why not ?)

But what about the cost involved for the tax-payer ?. Apparently when driven out of his friend's home Glitter was met at midnight by whatever that police force is that protects people and transported to a secret location.

Again-the tax-payer is needlessly subsidising a profit making newspaper on it's rediculous quest..they should be made pay the cost !.

Maybe a private citizen could take that on as government minsiters are so gutless.