London: British pop paedophile Gary Glitter has been freed from prison after serving eight years of his sentence for sexually abusing three young schoolgirls.

The former pop star, now 79, was jailed in 2015, but it reported to have walked free from Dorset’s HMP The Verne on Friday morning (UK time).

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, found fame in the 1970s as part of the glam rock scene, scoring No.1 hits with I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am), I Love You Love Me Love and Always Yours.

He was freed halfway through a fixed-term determinate sentence, the Press Associated reported.

Glitter’s fall from grace began almost 25 years ago after he admitted to possessing 4000 child pornography images; he was jailed for four months in 1999.

In 2002, he was expelled from Cambodia amid reports of sex crime allegations, and in March 2006 he was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam, where he spent two-and-a-half years in jail.

Several historical allegations only came to light nearly 40 years later when Glitter became the first person to be arrested under Operation Yewtree, the investigation launched by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

He was sentenced in 2015 for attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one of having sex with a girl under 13. One victim was less than 10 years old when he crept into her bed and tried to rape her in 1975.