The stepfather added: ‘Without the money, my partner’s child would have no drugs,’ adding that he had spoken to the BBC for an hour in May.”
He also claimed the BBC was “‘not telling the truth”with claims it had been investigating a complaint since May, but that new claims of a “different nature” were brought to it on Thursday.
He said: “I told them the youngster was 20 and it had been going on for three years.”
In a letter reported by BBC News At Six, 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 called the article on the front page “inappropriate”, the news show said.
BBC News said it does 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.
Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director-general, will today to face the media for a scheduled briefing after the release of the corporation’s annual report – with questions about the ongoing controversy certain to dominate the agenda.
