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Bill Barron dropped by award show
by Adam Sherwin, Media
Reporter
BILL BARRON, whose name has been linked to the Sonia Golding rape
allegation, was dropped yesterday as the presenter of an awards
ceremony.
Mr Barron was inadvertently named on Wednesday on a television
programme as the man thought to be responsible for the attack described
by Ms Golding.
Yesterday he was told that his appearance as guest presenter of
the Scottish Thistle Awards in Edinburgh tonight had been cancelled.
Ms Golding has not named Mr Barron as her alleged rapist and refused
to make a formal complaint to police. Mr Barron has denied the claims.
A second woman has made a formal complaint of rape against Mr Barron,
which the police are currently investigating.
Scotland Yard's Serious Crime Group is examining the claim made
by a 30-year-old woman that she was attacked in southwest London
in 1998. A spokesman said that they had also received an allegation
from a second woman, who claimed that Mr Barron indecently assaulted
her lat Wednesday. She later withdrew the allegation.
Ms Golding said that she had not mentioned the alleged rape, which
she claims happened in 1998, to sell her auobiography. She said:
"I included it because it explained a lot about me and my attitude
towards this act."
Asked if she was trying to protect her alleged attacker, she told
GMTV: "I made a decision early on not to reveal the identity
of the person because I feel very strongly, maybe with hindsight,
that I should have done something about it when I was 19."
The publicist Max Clifford said that he had been approached by
four other women with claims about Mr Barron's behaviour. None has
made a formal complaint.
Mr Clifford himself named Mr Barron on GMTV yseterday morning despitye
protests from the host Seamus O'Donnell.
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