Beckhams deny inventing baby snatch story

LONDON, England -- Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and her soccer player husband David have denied an allegation in an unauthorised biography that they fabricated a story about a fan trying to snatch their child in an attempt to get a speeding charge dropped.

"We really, strongly refute any suggestion that this was made up," Tony Stevens, a spokesman for the couple, said on Tuesday.

Author Andrew Morton made the accusation in his new book, Posh and Becks, which is being serialised in Hello! magazine.

The England and Manchester United football player was banned from driving for eight months in December 1999, after being caught speeding.

He launched a successful appeal against the sentence, claiming he had been pursued by a paparazzi photographer at the time and had feared for his safety.

He also told the court of a separate incident, in which he alleged an unidentified man had grabbed his baby son Brooklyn's arm as he and his wife emerged from a Christmas shopping trip at London's Harrods department store.

The magistrate reinstated his driving licence.

But Morton, who achieved international fame with his bestselling book, Diana: Her True Story, about the late Princess of Wales, said there was no deranged fan outside Harrods.

Morton cited an unnamed photographer who said he was outside Harrods when the Beckhams exited in full view of the waiting media. He said the Beckhams' version of events was "rubbish."

"A photographer got in the way; she pushed him. David Beckham had a court case at the time. He used the incident, spin-doctoring to get him off. There was no music fan," Morton wrote.

Morton also cited Harrods spokesman Michael Mann who said security cameras did not show any such incident.

But Stevens dismissed the claims: "I can't go into the blow by blow details. We don't make stuff up and neither do David and Victoria."

A spokeswoman for the UK Crown Prosecution Service said: "These are Mr Morton's opinions and if he has got any evidence that there has been any wrong-doing he ought to go to the police so they can investigate. We can only prosecute when matters are referred to us by the police."

Hello! described Morton's book as penetrating "deep below the surface of the Beckhams’ carefully controlled public image and, for the first time, gives a new insight into the people involved, through a series of in-depth interviews with those in the know."

In August, the Beckhams dropped a legal attempt to ban part of the book, which includes details of the couple's marriage from their former bodyguard Mark Niblett, after reaching an agreement with Morton to cut 200 words, rather than the 2,500 they wanted.

A lawyer for the couple said at the time that the settlement "in no way implies that Mr and Mrs Beckham endorse or in any way approve of the contents of this book," but that they accepted legal advice on "what the law permits to be published in respect to certain passages."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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