Disgraced paedophile pop star Gary Glitter has lost a United Kingdom Parole Board bid to be freed from jail.

The decision comes after a hearing behind closed doors last month to consider the 79-year-old’s case.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was jailed for 16 years in 2015 for sexually abusing three schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980. His sentence expires in February 2031.

He was automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, in February last year after serving half of his sentence.

Glitter was put back behind bars less than six weeks later for breaching his licence conditions by allegedly viewing downloaded images of children.

In a decision published on Wednesday, the Parole Board said: “after considering the circumstances of his offending, the lack of progress made while in custody and on licence, and the other evidence presented at the hearing, the panel was not satisfied that release at this point would be safe for the protection of the public”.

“Rather, the panel considered that Mr Gadd was appropriately located in custody where outstanding levels of risk could be addressed.”

The hearing took place in secret after a request for proceedings to be heard in public was rejected on the grounds it was too difficult to contact all his victims.

Glitter’s fall from grace began in the late 1990s when he was jailed for possessing thousands of child abuse images.

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, and spent two-and-a-half years in jail.

The offences for which he was jailed in 2015 came to light as part of Operation Yewtree, the Metropolitan Police investigation launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Earlier this year, Glitter was accused of showing a “total lack of remorse” towards his victims by lawyers representing a woman he abused when she was 12 years old and who is now suing him.