Shamed pop star Gary Glitter has left Bangkok and is on a flight bound for London, the Foreign Office has said.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, had repeatedly refused to return to Britain after being released from prison in Vietnam, where he had been jailed for abusing two young girls.

He fled to Bangkok then Hong Kong - but was refused entry to the Chinese territory and forced to return to the Thai capital.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We can confirm that Mr Gadd has left Bangkok and is heading to the UK."

He is due to arrive at Heathrow on Friday, where he can expect to be greeted by the police and a hostile press.

On arrival officers will serve Glitter with an order which will effectively put him on the sex offenders register for a second time.

Glitter served two years and nine months of a three-year sentence in Vietnam for abusing two girls aged ten and 11.

Under the terms of his release he was due to board a connecting flight to London's Heathrow airport in Bangkok but refused, claiming ill health.

He flew to Hong Kong after more than 20 hours in an airport transit lounge in Bangkok but was barred entry by Chinese officials.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced tighter controls on the movement of paedophiles on Wednesday, saying: "What I am concerned about is, whoever the individual sex offender is, that we have in place the necessary provisions to monitor them.

"No paedophile is a celebrity, every paedophile needs to be controlled."

She said it was "pretty hard to imagine it would be legitimate for him to travel abroad again".

But she added: "If you are a British citizen, you have the right to use the NHS, whatever we think about an individual, and this is a pretty despicable person."

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