On the morning Gary Glitter's child abuse trial began in Vietnam 10 days ago, a young mother went into hiding in a village near the Cambodian border, terrified at the prospect of being made to testify against the 61-year-old former rock star.
A letter had been served by police on the family of Tran Thi Kim Oanh, demanding that she travel 400km to Vung Tau to give evidence about how she had slept with the glam rock star and sold her then 10-year-old niece to him for sex.
The 24-year-old fled, fearful that if she complied police would jail her for selling her niece to Glitter. She was also genuinely alarmed at the prospect of being parted from her four-month-old daughter Truc Ly.
Working with an interpreter, I tracked her down to a relative's home ahead of the police. In a tense hour-long encounter, we persuaded her that if she failed to appear in court, she would almost certainly be arrested and could jeopardise the entire case against Glitter.
At dawn the next day - with less than 12 hours to spare before the end of the two-day trial, Ms Oanh tearfully left her baby behind with her family and boarded a bus to make the seven-hour journey to Vung Tau, accompanied by her older sister.
Ms Oanh's role in the sordid Gary Glitter story might have ended there, were it not for the questions raised by the fair-skinned baby girl with deep blue eyes who she rushed home to nurse immediately after giving her testimony.
Truc Ly was born in November last year, nine months after Ms Oanh paid one of her visits to Glitter's seafront villa in Vung Tau where she and other girls were paid for sex and to seek out even younger girls for him to sleep with.