Police refuse to say sorry to MacKenzie

A shameless Mr MacKenzie provoked fresh outrage when it emerged he had instructed solicitors to demand an "apology and recompense" from the police.

But the police issued a statement yesterday which said: "We have publicly apologised to the Hillsborough families and the Liverpool fans but we will not apologise to Mr MacKenzie.

"He chose to write his own headline and he should accept responsibility for it."

The Sun's notorious front-page story, which ran just four days after 96 Liverpool fans died in April 1989, claimed that Liverpool fans urinated on police officers resuscitating the dying and stole from the dead.

The story sparked widespread revulsion and led to an almost total boycott on Merseyside which continues to this day.

Secretary of the Hillsborough Families Support Group Sue Roberts said: "The gall of that man to paint himself as a victim and for him to ask anybody for an apology; it beggars belief."

The former Sun editor, writing in The Spectator magazine, outrageously bleated that he had suffered "personal vilification for decades" as a result of the paper's disgraceful reporting of the disaster.

According to extracts published on The Spectator's website, he wrote: "Now I know - you know, we all know - that the fans were right.

"But it took 23 years, two inquiries, one inquest and research into 400,000 documents, many of which were kept secret under the 30-year no-publication rule, to discover there was a vast cover-up by South Yorkshire Police about the disaster.

"Where does that leave me?" he whined.

He went on to say that police patrols have been increased around his house and describes a "physical danger" he faces in Liverpool.

"But the people who have got away scot-free are South Yorkshire Police," he wrote, self-pityingly adding that he was seeking recompense for "the lies their officers told".