In his own words, the toll those live TV scenes took
WATCHING SEARCH ON TV:
I could see the police going through the drawers in one of the rooms of my apartment... I felt confused, disturbed and very upset. It was like I was watching burglars in my apartment, going through my personal belongings.
HIS COLLAPSE:
It felt that my old life, which for many years had been so calm and peaceful, was over. It was then that things really hit home... I literally lost the power to stand. I collapsed in the kitchen.
Nothing like it had ever happened to me before. I was just in despair, and felt hopeless and helpless. I felt as though I was in a hole, with no means of getting out, and I was on my knees in the kitchen, sobbing. At that moment I couldn’t see how I could face the future, my friends, or my family.
Although I knew that I had not done anything wrong, it felt like the whole world – everyone who knew me, everywhere I had been – must believe that I had, or at least was talking about whether I had done it or not.
DAMAGE TO HIS HEALTH:
My health suffered, both mentally and physically. During the day, there was the ever-present knot in the stomach.
At night, if I managed to get to sleep at all, I’d wake up in the middle of the night, going over things in my head again and again.
I really didn’t have a proper night’s sleep in 22 months. I thought I was going crazy, because I often found I was talking to myself.
At one point, feeling particularly sleep–deprived and tormented, I actually thought I was going to have a heart attack or a stroke.
HIS RUINED REPUTATION:
It felt like torture, sustained over a period of almost two years. It felt as though everything I had done, everything I had built and worked to achieve, was being torn down; like life itself was coming to an end. And at the same time it all seemed so unfair.
I know that life can be unfair – and until August 2014 it had been fairer to me than most – but I had to draw deeply on my faith to try to make sense of what was happening to me, knowing as I did that I was innocent of the accusations against me, to which the BBC had decided to give maximum publicity.
It felt as though everything I had worked for during my life – trying to live as honestly and honourably as I could – was being torn apart.
I felt that the publicity stemming from the BBC’s broadcast had taken away from me what I was, and what I was known as before: a confident and respected artist, and a good ambassador for this country.
I felt forever tainted. I still do.
HIS TAINTED LEGACY:
I had always thought that what people would remember about me would be the music and other positive things that I have done during the course of my life.
I now fear that at least one of the things with which people will associate me after I have gone is these dreadful, false accusations, which would probably have never come out or gained any traction if it hadn’t been for the BBC’s decision to put them on television in the way that they did.
Unfortunately, I fear that to some extent my standing and my self–esteem have been damaged forever.
HIS VERDICT ON BBC
Of all the people that might have done this to me, I would never have dreamed that it would be the BBC. It would never have crossed my mind. I have always had a great deal of respect for the BBC... It is an institution, respected around the world.
I suppose it is for this reason that I thought the BBC would absolutely play by the rules... When all is said and done, I am left with the overwhelming feeling that what the BBC did to me was very wrong. I was portrayed as a sex offender around the world before I had even been questioned by the police.
I had to watch on TV my home being searched by the police.
Later, they refused to apologise to me, refused to recognise that they had done anything wrong at all, and even boasted that it was the scoop of the year.