Former glam rock singer Gary Glitter faces dying behind bars after being jailed for 16 years for sexually abusing three schoolgirls.

The 70-year-old, real name Paul Gadd, was sentenced after being found guilty of one count of attempted rape, one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under 13, and four counts of indecent assault.

Glitter, dressed in a black velvet coat and burgundy scarf, showed no reaction as he was led from the dock after he was sentenced at London's Southwark Crown Court.

There was standing room only in court as loyal fans of the singer gathered in the public gallery to see him learn his fate.

Before the hearing they had huddled together, poring over a Glitter annual, sharing tales of their fandom.

Sentencing the singer Judge Alistair McCreath said: "I have read the victim impact statements of all three victims. It is clear , in their different ways, they were all profoundly effected by your abuse of them.

"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."

He added: "The offences for which I must pass sentence today took place many years ago at a time when in particular, in respect of one of them, the maximum sentence was considerably lower than that which is now available."

He earlier said that the guidelines dictated that he must take the current sentencing options into account.

Glitter, from Marylebone, central London, denied the allegations against him.

He was cleared at trial of one count of plying a girl under 13 with alcohol in order to facilitate sexual intercourse, and two further counts of indecent assault.

Habitual sexual predator Glitter was jailed after being found guilty following a three week-long trial.

He was at the height of his fame when he preyed on his vulnerable victims who thought no one would believe their words over that of a celebrity.

He attacked two girls, aged 12 and 13, after inviting them backstage to his dressing room, and isolating them from their mothers.

The 70-year-old's youngest victim was younger than 10 years old when he crept into her bed and tried to rape her in 1975.

But the allegations came to light only around nearly 40 years later when Glitter became the first person to be arrested under Operation Yewtree - the investigation launched by the Met in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Sentencing the paedophile, Judge McCreath, branded his abuse of a girl under 10 as "appalling".

He continued: "It is difficult to overstate the depravity of this dreadful behaviour."

Referring to the second girl who he attacked after a night club performance, the judge added: "The 12-year-old victim came with her mother to one of your concerts.

"You invited them both to your hotel and created a situation in which her mother was taken out of your suite of rooms to another place, leaving you with this sexually inexperienced child.

"All of this happened because and only because of your fame. You kept her in your room all night."

Judge McCreath told Glitter: "The assessment of the harm caused by sexual offending is not easy in the immediate, or near immediate, aftermath of it. But where the offending took place many years ago, it is a great deal easier."

He concluded: "I note that in 2011 you sought out professional help to understand your sexual attitudes and behaviour.

"I am in no position to decide what your true motivation was in seeking this treatment, whether it was to come to terms with your past and to change your attitudes and behaviour or it was to persuade the authorities to allow you to travel abroad.

"But one thing is certain and important in the context of this sentencing exercise.

"Whatever changes may have been effected in you by this treatment, they did not include any admission at all on your part of the wrong that you had done, in particular of the offences of which you now stand convicted."

The judge reiterated that he found no evidence that Glitter had "atoned" for his offences.

Glitter suffered a spectacular fall from grace in 1999 when he admitted possessing 4,000 child pornography images and was jailed for four months in 1999.

In 2002 Glitter was expelled from Cambodia over unspecified allegations, and in March 2006 he was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam.

During the trial, all three of Glitter's victims sobbed as they recounted their ordeals.

One woman, now in her 50s, described how she had attended a party at a house - where she had previously met Alvin Stardust - on the night she was attacked in 1975.

She remembered Glitter smelling of "booze and cigarettes" and putting his arm over her, making her feel "uncomfortable".

The victim said she did not try to push him away because she did not want to be rude.

Glitter's second victim was 12 years old when he attacked her after a spring 1977 show at Leicester nightclub Baileys.

She initially went backstage with her mother and had a gold jacket autographed while drinking Moet champagne, but was then invited to the singer's Holiday Inn hotel suite.

Once back in the room, star songwriter, producer and Glitter's manager, Mike Leander led the girl's mother away, while the shamed singer took her by the hand into a bedroom, the court heard.

The girl tried to push the naked singer away, but as she lifted her hands, he shouted at her not to touch his hair, telling her he had a "phobia".

He then pushed her on to the bed and subjected her to a prolonged period of sexual abuse.

Two indecent assault charges related to a third girl, who was aged 13 when the singer invited her to sit on his lap in his dressing room between October 1979 and December 1980.

Wearing a silver sequinned jumpsuit unzipped to the navel, and silver platform boots, he forcefully kissed the youngster and then slid his hand up her skirt in a club called Baileys in Watford.

Glitter claimed there was no way he could have abused the girls in his dressing room because his rigorous wig-maintenance routine required him to return to his suite immediately and clean his hairpiece.