ON March 12, 2006 we published an apology retracting our publication of false claims by Sally Anderson that amongst other things she had had sex with David Blunkett and that when he was told she was pregnant he abandoned her.
We also undertook not to repeat those untrue allegations.
In contradiction of this in an article published on September 23, 2007 entitled ‘X-Rated Video’ we mistakenly and wrongly stated that David Blunkett’s latest mistress was Sally Anderson. Sally Anderson is not and has never been David Blunkett’s mistress.
We apologise to David Blunkett for the distress caused by the publication of this untrue and hurtful allegation and have agreed to pay him damages and his legal costs.
A Nov. 15 Sports column commented on reports of allegations that New York Rangers’ forward Sean Avery goaded Toronto Maple Leaf Jason Blake about his battle with leukemia, leading to a pre-game scuffle between Avery and Toronto’s Darcy Tucker. There is no evidence that Avery made such remarks, and in fact, as was reported in that Star column, he has denied the allegations. The Star regrets the error. 
Last Sunday’s diary wrongly reported that Matthew D’Ancona, the editor of The Spectator, had hosted a lunch for John Standing at which he had fawned over one of Mr Standing’s guests, the actress Billie Piper. Mr D’Ancona has pointed out that Billie Piper did not attend the lunch, he has never met her and has certainly not fawned over her. 
In ‘The mayhem behind the microphone’ (Review, last week), we said historian Norman Stone was ‘too hammered’ to appear on an edition of Radio 4’s Today programme. While this was reported in good faith, we now accept that it was untrue: the BBC was unable to get him to a studio in time to broadcast. We apologise to Professor Stone. 
