His mother was a cleaner who was unmarried and she raised him with the help of her mother and he knew his father and he was hard to control because of his antisocial behaviour along with his brother and he was taken with his brother into local authority care when he was 10 years old. Although a Protestant he went to a Roman Catholic school. He got in trouble at school as a child, he also often ran away and went to London to clubs where his glam rock career started and he started calling himself Paul Raven in 1960 when his glam rock career started and then Gary Glitter in 1971 which he is known as. He has become infamous after being convicted of possessing child pornography and of child sexual abuse. Glitter has also been investigated for claims of child abuse dating back to the 1950s, connecting to the activities of the child abuser Jimmy Savile. He was briefly married to Anne Merton with who he had a son called Paul and a daughter called Sarah but Glitter and Merton divorced. Later when he lived in Cuba he had a Cuban girlfriend called Yudenia Sosa Martinez with who he had another son in 2001 called Gary Glitter Jr. In the 1970s Giltter was also convicted of driving under the influence and had used drugs such as cocaine and had a drug overdose.