LONDON — British children’s author and comedian David Walliams used his fame to groom girls and young women for sex, two British news outlets reported on Tuesday.

ITV News and the Guardian newspaper said their joint investigation featured interviews with multiple women who gave firsthand accounts of Walliams' conduct. One woman alleged she was sexually assaulted by Walliams at his London home when she was 15, while others accused him of grooming them when they were teens.

Walliams, 55, denied the allegations. He unsuccessfully sought a court injunction to bar the news outlets from identifying him, claiming that publication of sexual misconduct allegations would lead him to take his own life.

The court fight delayed publication for months, but a judge rejected his injunction request last week and the protection of his identity expired late Monday.

“I am not a sexual predator,” Walliams said in a letter to the news organizations. “I have not broken the law, but I am devastated that some of the women I met 10 to 20 years ago have now expressed hurt or anger towards me.”

“Whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did,” he added.

Walliams is best known for comedy sketches on “Little Britain,” a hugely popular British TV show in the 2000s, but he’s also a celebrated children’s book author with some 40 published titles that sold more than 60 million copies worldwide, according to his website.

Several of them, including “Gangsta Granny,” have been adapted into BBC comedy dramas and stage productions. Producers of “Fing!” — an upcoming film based on Walliams' book — said in a statement Tuesday that they had removed his cameo appearance and that Walliams “will have no involvement in the film’s release or promotion.” He is credited as a co-writer. U.K. distributor Sky told Variety it was dropping the movie. Angel Studios, the U.S. distributor, did not answer the Associated Press' emailed query about its plans for the film.

Walliams was dropped last year by publisher HarperCollins after allegations were made of inappropriate behavior. Few details were published at the time, but the Guardian reported Tuesday that there were concerns about his behavior for years, including an allegation that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a junior female employee.

He was also a judge for a decade on “Britain’s Got Talent,” though he stepped down in 2022 after apologizing for making “disrespectful comments” about auditioning contestants.

The BBC said Tuesday it was removing some programs, including “Little Britain,” while it carried out a review of “all material featuring and written by David Walliams on our platforms.”

The literary agency Independent Talent Group also said it was dropping Walliams following the new allegations.

The court fight, in which Walliams was identified in news reports as a “famous man,” drew widespread attention in Britain because it highlighted questions over public figures’ right to privacy and what media can report on the basis of public interest.

Walliams’ lawyer, Sara Mansoori, told the High Court that he had made a suicide attempt when he received letters from ITN and Guardian News and Media seeking his response to the allegations. He later made another attempt, she said, and he was recently admitted to the hospital for psychiatric care.

Attorney Gavin Millar, representing the media companies, has said that the allegations were gathered after “a wide-ranging and rigorous investigation” and that there was a strong public interest in publishing them.

Millar told the court that the investigation involved speaking to more than 100 people, and alleged that over a period of years Walliams “used his status and influence as a well-known public figure to establish contact with young women, some considerably younger than him, and that he engaged or sought to engage in seriously inappropriate conduct,” according to a summary of the court judgment.

Some of the alleged conduct could amount to criminal offenses if proven, a summary of the court judgment said.

The Metropolitan Police in London contacted the news organizations Tuesday to make sure any possible victims knew how to report criminal allegations.

In dismissing the injunction bid, Justice Matthew Nicklin said such a legal measure would mean “an exceptionally serious interference” with the rights of the media companies.

He noted that Walliams had a “serious and longstanding psychiatric vulnerability” which must be taken seriously, and said a decision allowing the allegations to be published will substantially increase his risk of suicide. However, he added that the evidence did not “establish that suicide is inevitable.”

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The 82-year-old estranged father of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, was ordered to jail Tuesday because he removed an electronic monitoring device from his ankle, just days after he was charged with possession of child sexual abuse material.

Thomas Markle was arrested and appeared in federal court in Tampa, Florida, after authorities learned he had cut off the device at 1:45 a.m., First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said.

“Release conditions are court orders, not suggestions,” Essayli said.

Markle’s arrest on Friday in Lakeland, Florida, followed the seizure of approximately 78 items from storage units in the Los Angeles area, including slides, film negatives and books that contained suspected child sexual abuse images, said Essayli, a federal prosecutor in California.

Markle was living in a senior care center at the time. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Lindsay Griffin agreed Tuesday that Markle now must be kept in custody. Authorities have not said where he will be held while his case remains in court ahead of a likely transfer to California.

In her written order, Griffin noted Markle's “housing situation” had become “untenable,” but did not elaborate. Defense attorney Mary Claire Wolf wanted to keep him out of custody but has not found a suitable place for Markle to stay, according to a hearing summary.

Essayli told the Associated Press he didn't know why the ankle device was removed. It also wasn't clear where it occurred. An email and phone message seeking comment from Wolf were not immediately returned.

Still pending, besides the charges: a mental competency exam for Markle.

He had a stroke earlier this year while living in the Philippines and had to have his left leg amputated. That forced him to return to the U.S.

The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, reported that Meghan’s half brother found a collection of child sexual abuse images while clearing out their father’s home in the Philippines. That discovery led to information about the two U.S. storage units in California, which Markle had rented since 2008.

Markle's daughter, Meghan, married Prince Harry at Windsor Castle in 2018. They have two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. She is an American citizen and an actor who starred in the U.S. television drama “Suits.”

She recently said she was “deeply distressed” by allegations that a collection of child sexual abuse images had been found at her father’s former home. She also revealed that a letter containing “troubling allegations” about him had been sent to police in London in 2019.

“It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father and I was given assurances that these were being investigated,” Meghan said of the letter. “I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications’ distortion over the years, any distance from my father and my choice to not allow him to have contact with our children was for one reason: to protect them.”

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DALLAS — Rapper Yella Beezy was found guilty on Wednesday of hiring the gunman who fatally shot rapper MO3 in a brazen daylight attack on a busy Dallas interstate in 2020.

Yella Beezy, 35, whose real name is Markies Conway, was unanimously convicted of capital murder by a Dallas County jury in the death of MO3, whose real name was Melvin Noble. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In September, a jury found Kewon White guilty of capital murder for fatally shooting Noble. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors said the killing was the result of an yearslong escalating feud between Conway and Noble. Both men lived in Dallas.

“We don’t know what turned it for the jurors. … We appreciate the verdict,” lead prosecutor Tommy Adams told reporters. “We think they got it right today.”

“It’s been one of the most challenging cases over the last six years,” he added.

Prosecutors said Conway paid White $40,000 for the shooting.

Noble, 28, was driving on Interstate 35 in south Dallas around noon on Nov. 11, 2020, when White pulled alongside him, authorities said. White stepped out of his vehicle holding a gun. Noble got out of his own vehicle and began running on the freeway as White shot at him, authorities said.

Prosecutor Tommy Adams said White wore a mask and fired over 40 rounds from an AK-47-style pistol while chasing Noble.

White shot Noble and a bystander who was inside a car, police said. The bystander survived, but Noble died at a hospital.

During closing arguments, prosecutors showed jurors a video clip of Conway talking about revenge in an interview, saying he would “get his lick back.” Prosecutor Krystal Biggins drew a comparison between Noble’s killing and a roadway shooting that injured Conway in 2018.

In October 2018, Conway survived being shot while driving on a tollway in the Dallas suburb of Lewisville when someone pulled up next to him and opened fire, hitting him three times.

“This was for the world to see,” Biggins said. “Over a rap beef, we are here for capital murder.”

The defense argued that prosecutors did not prove their case. “This is capital murder, and the state has brought you a lot of speculation,” defense attorney John Gussio said.

Noble had more than 800,000 Instagram followers and was best known for a 2019 remix of “Errybody,” with Baton Rouge, Louisiana, rapper Boosie Badazz.

Conway is best known for his 2017 single, “That’s On Me,” and the 2019 song “Bacc At It Again” with Quavo and Gucci Mane.

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By Associated Press