PERVERTED rock star Gary Glitter's links with Melksham were thrust into the limelight in a TV documentary screened this week.

The town's Assembly Hall will go down in history as the venue where the child-porn obsessed glam rocker started his rollercoaster career.

As Channel 4 screened The Real Gary Glitter on Tuesday night, July 30, a bronze plaque commemorating his historic concert in 1972 gathered dust under a pile of chairs in an unspectacular hall closet.

Glitter, 57, was nationally disgraced in 1999 when he admitted 54 counts of possessing child pornography.

Shocked staff at a computer shop in Bristol found the depraved images when Glitter took his machine in for repairs.

Graphic images of children as young as two years old being abused, tortured and raped were found among the haul of 4,000 porn pictures.

Town residents called for the plaque, donated by Glitter in 1992, to be torn down as Melksham turned its back on the fallen idol hours after he was thrown in a prison cell.

Channel 4's documentary charted the singer's spectacular fall from fame as child porn revelations rocked Britain. It featured a poster promoting Glitter's debut show in Melksham.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, drew crowds of 1,500 screaming fans when his show the Gary Glitter Rock 'n' Roll Spectacular came to the town on July 15, 1972.

Twenty years later he returned to present West Wiltshire District Council leader Mary Stacey with the plaque subsequently given pride of place in the Assembly Hall. Cllr Stacey said the tribute to the twisted singer must never be allowed to go back up. She said: "At the time it was a great legacy for Melksham and I was pleased to accept the plaque for the town.

"On the day we had a lot of fun but he was hiding something much darker.

"I taped the programme and hoped I would not be on it. He was very peculiar.

"The plaque should be kept down but stored for historical reasons. The crimes he committed were absolutely horrid."

Melksham town clerk John Crook said the plaque was stored at the Assembly Hall but hidden under a pile of chairs and tables.

Mayor Vic Oakman said Glitter was a phenomenon in his day but the town could not forgive him for his paedophilic crimes.

He said: "It is not a nice reputation for us as a town as being the place where he started his career. Of course it was totally different when he was first in Melksham. The plaque had to come down we can't condone what he has done."

l Wiltshire Police are due to announce the results of multi agency public protection panel reports in September.

The panels were set up in every county after the brutal murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne.

Made up of several agencies including police, probation and youth offending teams, they were tasked with monitoring violent and dangerous sex offenders living in the community.

Up to 42,000 paedophiles nationwide are monitored and the panel will report how successful police have been in keeping track of registered sex offenders.