Salman Rushdie, the Booker prize-winning author, won apologies in the High Court yesterday over allegations that when living under police protection he was unhygienic, suicidal and sought to profit from the fatwa on him.

A former police officer and convicted fraudster, Ron Evans, apologised through his solicitor over eleven counts of falsehood.

Mr Rushdie said the court had shown claims about his character in Mr Evans's as-yet unpublished memoir On Her Majesty's Service were "complete lies".

Mr Evans, whose duties included driving for the Special Branch protection squad that looked after Sir Salman when his life was under threat, had made a series of allegations in the book. It was to have been published at the beginning of August but was delayed after being serialised in the Mail on Sunday, when Sir Salman first became aware of its contents.

John Blake Publishing Ltd pulped the 4000 copies that were printed but never published after discovering that substantial parts of two chapters were untrue. Parts of the book have now been re-written.

Yesterday, Mr Justice Teare made a Declaration of Falsity against Evans, his ghost writer Douglas Thompson and John Blake Publishing.

Sir Salman, who did not seek damages, said after the hearing: “This has been an unattractive affair.

“My only interest was to establish the truth. I’m happy that the court has made its declaration of falsity and that the authors and publishers have recognised their falsehoods and apologised. As far as I am concerned that’s the end of the matter.”

David Sherborne, the barrister representing Sir Salman, told the judge that Mr Evans met his client while he was living under the strain of a fatwa issued against him by the Iranian regime in 1989 over his book The Satanic Verses.

Mr Evans left the police force after being convicted on nine counts of dishonesty, Mr Sherborne said.

He said Mr Evans’s book, and extracts from it published in the Mail on Sunday, contained “many so-called revelations about Sir Salman’s home life, his relationship with his wife, son and interactions with police protection officers.

“In addition to the invasion of his privacy which this book represented, of particular concern to the claimant were a series of utterly and demonstrably false statements which it contained.”

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