A SECOND young person has came forward with fresh claims against the BBC presenter at the centre of ongoing scandal.
A young person in their early 20s felt threatened by messages they received from the BBC presenter, who is already facing allegations that he paid a teenager for sexually explicit photos.
The broadcaster reports the second person to come forward said they were first contacted anonymously by the male presenter on a dating app.
They say they were put under pressure to meet up but never did.
The presenter then revealed his identity and asked the young person not to tell anyone.
The young person later posted online alluding to having had contact with a BBC presenter and hinting they might name him.
The presenter then sent a number of “threatening messages” which the BBC says it has seen and confirmed came from a phone number belonging to the presenter.
The BBC said the young person felt “threatened” by the messages and “remains scared”.
BBC News said it had contacted the presenter via his lawyer but had received no response to the allegations.
The initial young person at the centre of the controversy has said nothing inappropriate or unlawful happened with the unnamed presenter, although their mother reportedly stands by the claims.
In a letter reported by BBC News At Six on Monday, the young person said via a lawyer: “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing inappropriate or unlawful has taken place between our client and the BBC personality and the allegations reported in The Sun newspaper are ‘rubbish’.”
The legal representative also said the young person told The Sun on Friday evening before the newspaper published the story that there was “no truth to it”, the BBC reported.
The lawyer reportedly called the article on the front page “inappropriate”, claiming in the letter that the mother and the young person are estranged.
BBC News said it does not know the identity of the young person and has not spoken to them directly, but that the letter was sent by a multinational law firm.
A spokesman for The Sun said: “We have reported a story about two very concerned parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and the welfare of their child. Their complaint was not acted upon by the BBC.
“We have seen evidence that supports their concerns. It’s now for the BBC to properly investigate.”
The mother and stepfather of the young person stood by their allegation, and questioned how their child could afford the lawyer, The Sun reported.
The BBC's director general Tim Davie was asked about the family’s suggestion that the young person’s legal fees were paid for by the presenter in question during his interview on World At One.
He said: “That is not information I am party too. That is not something for the BBC, bluntly.
“I think there is absolutely a proper duty of care for everyone involved, but when it comes to those matters, they may be appropriate lines of inquiry for the newsroom, but for the BBC corporately we need to make sure we are taking the evidence we have got and presenting that to the police and taking that forward.”
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