Paedophile pop star Gary Glitter has been recalled to prison following a breach of his release conditions.

The 78-year-old, who had a string of chart hits in the 1970s, had been freed in February after being jailed in 2015 for sexually abusing three schoolgirls.

He left HMP The Verne – a low-security category C jail in Portland, Dorset – following eight years behind bars, having served half of his 16-year sentence.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was subject to licence conditions on his release, including being closely monitored by the police and Probation Service and fitted with a GPS tag.

“Protecting the public is our number one priority. That’s why we set tough licence conditions and when offenders breach them, we don’t hesitate to return them to custody,” a Probation Service spokesman said.

The Ministry of Justice did not give details of the breach, but the Sun newspaper reported Glitter was caught trying to access the dark web.

Footage last week showed the disgraced glam rock singer staring at a mobile phone while reportedly in his bail hostel.

The MoJ had said on his release that he would face “some of the strictest licence conditions” and that if he breached them at any point he could go back behind bars.

The sex offender was at the height of his fame when he preyed on his victims, who thought no one would believe their claims because of his celebrity status.

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

His third victim was younger than10 when he crept into her bed and tried to rape her in 1975.

The 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 after the Jimmy Savile scandal.

His fall from grace occurred years earlier after he admitted possessing 4000 child pornography images and was jailed for four months in 1999.

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

– AAP