I've had John Leslie's baby, but he's ignoring us both

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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They are pictures to melt the stoniest of hearts - a young mother cradling her week-old baby in her arms.

But whether they are enough to persuade the baby's father - disgraced TV presenter John Leslie - to get in touch with his first child is another matter.

The ex-This Morning host has shunned his former lover Rachel Bentley since she told him she was pregnant, and is refusing to have anything to do with the baby.

He was not there when she gave birth to a daughter last week, and is determined to have nothing to do with the child that he had not even enquired as to whether the child was a boy or a girl.

Speaking publicly for the first time about it yesterday, Bentley pleaded with him to get in touch, and have a role in the little girl's life.

'Unbelievably, he wants nothing to do with her,' she said.

The 24-year-old, who works in marketing, gave birth to Isabelle Angela in a Brighton hospital last Sunday.

She said she had tried contacting Leslie, 41, several times in recent months but received no reply. 'The last time we did speak he told me only to contact him through his lawyer,' she said.

'It saddens me to think that the lovely John I knew doesn't want anything to do with this beautiful little baby of ours.

'But that's his choice. He knew that I was due to give birth but has failed to get in touch, even through a third party.'

Bentley, who lives with her parents in Brighton, embarked on an affair with Leslie in February last year after meeting him at a party shortly after he split up with nurse-turned-glamour model Abi Titmuss.

They separated five months later following revelations that he had cheated on her with transsexual Talica Luci, but started dating again shortly afterwards.

Then, earlier this year, when Leslie discovered she was pregnant, he dumped her. She later claimed that he urged her to have an abortion and, when she refused, accused her of trying to 'trap him' into marriage.

In an interview with The People newspaper yesterday, Bentley said that she will not be able to put Leslie's name on the birth certificate without his permission.

'If John wants to be on her certificate, I'd be more than happy to name him. I think he will want to have a paternity test - although he hasn't asked me yet. I have nothing to hide.'
She also insisted that she was not trying to make him pay maintenance.

'Of course, money from John would help. But if he doesn't want to accept that she's his I'm not going to force him to pay.

'It's not about the money. I just want him to be a part of Isabelle's life.'

Leslie's career has been imploded overnight when he was - apparently inadvertently - named on live TV as the man Ulrika Jonsson said had raped her.

Although Jonsson herself never identified him, the allegation prompted scores of other women to come forward with shocking claims about his sordid private life.

In June 2003, he was accused of indecently assaulting an actress six years previously. The charges were eventually dropped but, by then, revelations about his cocaine-use had cost him his £250,000-a-year job as presenter of ITV's This Morning.

It is understood that Leslie spent most of last week at his home in Edinburgh.

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