9 November 2012 Last updated at 13:31 ET

Lord McAlpine gets man's apology over abuse claims

Steve Messham met Welsh Secretary David Jones earlier this week

A former resident of a north Wales care home has apologised for making false allegations of sexual abuse against a Conservative politician.

Steve Messham said a case of mistaken identity had led to peer Lord McAlpine being linked to the historical claims.

It comes as the solicitor for Lord McAlpine, 70, threatened legal action against those who had named him in connection with the allegations.

Mr Messham offered "sincere and humble apologies to him and his family".

In a statement on Friday evening, he said: "After seeing a picture in the past hour of the individual concerned, this [is] not the person I identified by photograph presented to me by the police in the early 1990s, who told me the man in the photograph was Lord McAlpine."

Earlier Lord McAlpine's solicitor, Andrew Reid, said the peer had "no choice" but to take legal action over claims linking him to abuse at Bryn Estyn children's home in Wrexham.

'Seriously defamatory'

Mr Reid said the claims were "false and seriously defamatory" to Lord McAlpine, who was Conservative Party treasurer from the late 1970s until 1990.

The solicitor was critical of the BBC's Newsnight, on which Mr Messham's claims were aired last week, although no-one was named.

The BBC said the Newsnight broadcast had voiced concerns raised by an abuse victim, in the public interest.

Lord McAlpine's solicitor Andrew Reid: "We have to look at Newsnight and the way in which they behaved"

Mr Messham, a former resident of the Bryn Estyn children's home, last week told Newsnight that he had been abused by an unnamed, senior politician of the Thatcher era at the home.

He called for a new investigation claiming a report by Sir Ronald Waterhouse in 2000 had not uncovered the full scale of the abuse.

In a statement also on Friday, Lord McAlpine said he had been subsequently named on the internet and by implication by other media over the claims and was issuing a denial "to set the record straight".

Lord McAlpine said he wanted to "tackle these slurs and set the record straight".

He said: "I have never been to the children's home in Wrexham, nor have I ever visited any children's home, reform school or any other institution of a similar nature.

"I have never stayed in a hotel in or near Wrexham, I did not own a Rolls-Royce, have never had a 'Gold card' or 'Harrods card' and never wear aftershave, all of which have been alleged.

"I did not sexually abuse Mr Messham or any other residents of the children's home in Wrexham."

Source : bbc[dot]co[dot]uk