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"Lord McAlpine has spoken out about the &amp;quot;wholly false and seriously defamatory&amp;quot; rumours of his involvement in sexual abuse at a children&amp;#039;s home in Wrexham. The ex-Conservative Party treasurer and life peer issued a full statement on the matter while reserving the right to sue those who had defamed him. Former Bryn Estyn resident Steve Messham had claimed on BBC&amp;#039;s Newsnight that he had been abused at the home by an unnamed man who was a senior politician while Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. McAlpine noted that his name and the allegations had been linked in the public domain and said that &amp;quot;in order to mitigate, if only to some small extent, the damage to my reputation I must publicly tackle these slurs and set the record straight&amp;quot;. The peer expressed &amp;quot;every sympathy for Mr Messham and for the many other young people who were sexually abused&amp;quot;, describing their abuse of vulnerable children as &amp;quot;particularly abhorrent&amp;quot;. McAlpine concluded: &amp;quot;I wish to make it clear that I do not suggest that Mr Messham is malicious in making the allegations of sexual abuse about me. He is referring to a terrible period of his life in the 1970s or 1980s and what happened to him will have affected him ever since. &amp;quot;If he does think I am the man who abused him all those years ago I can only suggest that he is mistaken and that he has identified the wrong person. &amp;quot;I conclude by reminding those who have defamed me or who intend to do so that in making this statement I am by no means giving up my right to seek redress at law and repeat that I expressly reserve my rights to take all such steps as I and my solicitors consider necessary to protect my interests.&amp;quot; Messham has since said that a case of mistaken identity had led to McAlpine being linked to the claims, and offered his &amp;quot;sincere and humble apologies to him and his family&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;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,&amp;quot; he said in a statement. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/media/news/a437135/lord-mcalpine-may-sue-over-wholly-false-child-abuse-claims/>