Jew World Order

• Adam Barker jumped bail in June 2004 after being arrested for allegedly possessing child pornography
• He handed himself in at a West London police station this morning and was charged with making indecent images of children
• Police allegedly found 2,500 indecent
  images of children on a computer after raiding his West London home in 2003
• Ronnie Barker never
  spoke about his son’s disappearance but was said to have been
  devastated
• Mystery surrounds where the 44-year-old has been for the past eight years

By
Rebecca Camber

UPDATED:

17:31 EST, 24 July 2012

In court: An artist impression of Adam Barker, who appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates Court today

Ronnie Barker’s son has returned to Britain after eight years on the run from child pornography allegations.

Adam Barker, 44, strolled into a
police station in London yesterday morning less than two miles from
where he disappeared in 2004.

By the afternoon he had been charged
with five counts of making indecent images of children and remanded in
custody by magistrates.

The once chubby actor appeared gaunt
and had a goatee beard.

His years as a fugitive saw him miss the
funerals of his comedian father and mother, from whom he stood to
inherit £2 million.

Last night, police refused to say where he had been
hiding.

Prosecutors confirmed there had not
been any extradition proceedings outside of the European Union and there
was only a long-standing request for his extradition from France,
suggesting that he may have been on the run in Europe.

Uxbridge Magistrates Court heard only
that he had fled the ‘jurisdiction’ with his passport.

The youngest son
of the late comedian was first arrested in June 2003 as part of
Operation Ore, the largest-ever police hunt for paedophiles who used
their credit cards to pay for child porn on the internet.

Police seized a computer from his home
in Ealing, West London, which was alleged to contain 2,600 indecent
pictures of children, with two pictures said to be in the highest
category of child pornography.

Barker, who appeared in the ITV
detective series Wycliffe and had small parts in Monarch Of The Glen,
Casualty and the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, had been due to return
to Southall police station on June 24, 2004, but he failed to answer
bail.

Family: Adam Barker is pictured, left, with his father Ronnie, right

Prosecutor Saliha Ayub told the court that when police searched his terrace home in Ealing they found a letter to his sister.

‘He left a letter to his family, to his sister, confirming he had left,’ she said.

Held: Adam Barker, 44,was remanded in custody today after appearing in court charged with making indecent images of children, after eight years on the run

Yesterday, his solicitor John Harding
told the Mail that Barker had surrendered himself to Acton police
station, West London, by appointment.

Barker was dressed casually in jeans
and a T-shirt for the brief hearing.

He spoke only to confirm his name
and when asked for his address, replied: ‘No current.’

Simon Ray, defending, indicated that the charges would be contested.

He was remanded in custody until August 21, when the matter will be committed to the Crown Court.

When his father, the star of Porridge,
The Two Ronnies and Open All Hours, died at the age of 76, detectives
were waiting to question his son at his memorial service in Westminster
Abbey in 2005.

But the fugitive did not show up.

When his mother, Joy, died last year,
he was left more than £2 million in her will, but it remains unclear
whether he will collect his inheritance.

Yesterday, veteran actor Leslie
Phillips, 88, a close friend of the runaway, praised him for finding the
courage to hand himself into police.

‘I had more or less given him up and feared he might have died while evading the law,’ he said.

‘It’s been a long time. But it’s a
huge relief knowing he is alive and well after all this time, and in a
strange sort of way he has restored the family’s name and honour. It’s
awfully sad, but a huge relief that he’s finally turned up. It will have
taken a great deal of courage on Adam’s part.

‘To many of us, Ronnie died of a
broken heart. He was deeply upset over Adam’s alleged involvement in a
police child pornography investigation. Ronnie was very close to Adam
and the other two children and was always there for them.

‘Poor Ronnie never talked openly of the mystery surrounding Adam’s disappearance, but I know he was deeply troubled by it.

‘He would have helped Adam if only he had confided in him and let him know he was in trouble.’

Actor: Adam Barker appeared in the ITV detective series Wycliffe. He is pictured far right as DS Ian Potter with the rest of the cast in the crime drama

There were reports that Barker was
living in France near where his older brother Larry, 51, and sister
Charlotte, 48, had holiday homes.

But his family always insisted they
had no idea of his whereabouts. Last night, his elder brother Larry
refused to comment. His late mother’s cousin Betty Westbroek, 79, simply
said yesterday: ‘I am glad he is alive.’

His former agent Rebecca Blond was
stunned by news of his arrest. She told the Mail: ‘I am absolutely
amazed to hear he is still alive.

‘He disappeared and I never heard from
him again. I had no idea what had happened to him. I am absolutely
thrilled to hear he is well.’

By PAUL BRACCHI

UPDATED:

17:31 EST, 24 July 2012

Ronnie Barker spent his last days at a hospice in Oxfordshire. By then he had already given up. Everyone knew why.

Everyone also knew that there was also no medical term for the real cause of his deterioration. How, after all, can you diagnose a broken heart?

That profoundly sad decline had begun the moment he and his wife Joy had received a type-written letter which began: ‘Dear Mummy and Daddy . . .’

Close: Ronnie Barker, who died in October 2005, is pictured with Adam on his first day at school in 1972

What followed was utterly devastating.
It read: ‘I need to tell you that some time ago the police came to my
house looking for images of underage children on my computer. I was
arrested.

‘Thank you for being great parents.
You must understand that I won’t be able to contact you for quite some
time. Rest assured I will not harm myself; I would rather come back.’

The letter was from their youngest son Adam, then aged 36. The date was June 2004. Fifteen months later Ronnie Barker was dead.

Few people who knew him believe the two events were unconnected.

On-screen, Ronnie may have been one
ebullient half of The Two Ronnies, the comedy legends who brought us the
famous ‘four candles’ (fork handles) sketch, among other hilarious
skits. Off‑screen, though, he was an intensely private man, devoted to
his family and home.

So it would be difficult to imagine a
more distressing — or more cruel — set of circumstances than those which
engulfed him following the disappearance of his son in such a
distressing way.

The physical change in Ronnie was
dramatic. His haggard appearance and uncertain delivery in The Two
Ronnies Sketchbook in 2005, in which he reprised his classic partnership
with Ronnie Corbett, shocked his legion of fans.

Privately, he never gave up hope that,
one day, Adam would eventually return home. But there was nothing. Not a
sighting. Not a word.

According to friends, Adam did not
even get in touch in the final days of his beloved father’s life. Nor
did he attend his funeral or memorial service at Westminster Abbey,
despite assurances from the police that he would be treated
sympathetically if he returned to answer questions.

Last year, his mother also passed away
after a short illness. She left £6 million in her will. The inheritance
was divided equally between the three children: eldest son Larry,
daughter Charlotte and the absent Adam. It was proof perhaps that his
parents had never abandoned him.

Indeed, there was speculation that his
mother and father had secretly helped him financially after he
disappeared eight years ago. We may never know.

Fortunately, most parents will never
have to make such an agonising choice — between love and loyalty to
flesh and blood, and the moral and legal obligation to inform the
police.

Adam, now 44, was especially close to
Ronnie. His elder brother Larry was christened Laurence after Olivier,
whom Ronnie revered. But while Larry became a successful advertising
executive, it was Adam who followed his father into the theatre. It was a
path, it seemed, he had been preparing for all his life.

His first introduction to showbusiness
was when he was just six. He featured in the pilot episode of Open All
Hours alongside his father who played the money-pinching shop owner
Arkwright. Adam played a little lad who came into Arkwright’s shop. His
‘pay’ for that cameo performance? An Action Man figure.

At seven, Adam found himself in Spain
watching his father play Friar Tuck in the film Robin And Marion, also
starring Audrey Hepburn and Sean Connery.

After going to school at Harrow, he
worked as a BBC researcher before moving on to the University of York,
where he realised he really did want to be an actor.

Contemporaries there remember him as
talented, although he never got the romantic roles because of his size —
he bore a remarkable resemblance to his generously-proportioned father
in that respect.

Someone who knew him back then described him as a ‘lovely Bunter-ish, Barker-ish figure’.

Adam, however, would have preferred to have been marked out as a potential leading man.

He had roles in several plays in
provincial theatre, and wherever he was appearing, Ronnie always came to
see him. He also had bit parts in TV series such as Monarch Of The Glen
and Wycliffe, the police drama set in Cornwall.

Adam reached his largest audience, albeit fleetingly, as a doomed sonar operator in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.

Missing: Joy Barker is pictured with son Larry attending Ronnie Barker’s funeral. Adam did not attend his parents’ funerals

When he was first arrested on June  3,
2003, and released on bail, his home was a terrace house in Ealing,
West London, bought for him by his father in 1990. For some time before
he vanished, the paint was peeling on the front door and rubbish spilled
out into the front garden.

His sister Charlotte lived a few doors
away. Neighbours remember Charlotte ‘always popping in to see her
brother’. At that stage, they had no idea Ronnie Barker was  their
father.

It was Charlotte who let officers into
Adam’s home in June 2004 after he failed to appear at Southall police
station to answer bail. His house was empty. Many of his personal
belongings had gone, including his clothes and passport.

Charlotte moved out of the street
shortly afterwards and into a village on the outskirts of Cognac, near
Bordeaux, where her older brother Larry lived in a £1 million chateau
and vineyard with his wife and two children.

Predictably, there was gossip that a British man answering Adam’s description had been seen in the neighbourhood.

Consistently, his family denied
knowing where he was or having any contact with him — while at the same
time having to cope with the terrible impact his disappearance was
having on his ageing father.

Only after Ronnie died in 2005 at the
age of 76 did his comedy partner Ronnie Corbett reveal in an  interview
just how hard it had been for Barker.

Corbett said: ‘Ron did say to me: “It’s just so awful. It’s like a bereavement. I’ve lost him, really.” ’

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