Within hours the damage was done. Beatles fans worldwide were stunned, Beatles Web sites and Internet newsgroups overflowed with postings and American TV stations flashed the news in bulletins throughout the day.

In England, Sir George awoke to discover the story and was mortified. According to Adam Sharp, Sir George immediately telephoned Harrison, who was very upset. At that point Sir George was baffled. The paper claimed that he had "told the Mail on Sunday" and yet he knew that he had had no contact with the newspaper. He told Harrison that he had not spoken with the paper and that he certainly had not told anyone that Harrison "knows that he is going to die soon."

With neither Harrison nor Sir George being well equipped in the political game of war-room-style rapid response, the story festered without an official rebuttal all through Sunday. Sharp was away for the weekend in the north of England, but on Monday morning he returned calls to the media, including responding to ABC's "Good Morning America," which became the first program or network in the U.S. to broadcast a rebuttal.

Throughout the day Sharp contacted other media outlets and -- at first unaware of the source of the manipulated quotes -- continued to say that there was no basis at all for the story. Finally, he surmised the source of the fabrication and immediately called Koch at WENN. "I spoke to him and he broke down in tears," said Sharp. "He told me that his boss had taken the tapes off him and manipulated the story without his consent." Koch's boss was WENN news editor James Desborough.

Meanwhile Harrison's principal lawyer in London, Nick Valner of the legal firm Eversheds, issued a statement to Britain's premier wire service, the Press Association, late on Monday afternoon. The statement said that Harrison and his wife, Olivia, were "disappointed and disgusted" by reports that referred to his "imminent demise."

The reports were unsubstantiated, untrue, insensitive and uncalled for, especially as Mr. Harrison is active and feeling very well in spite of the health challenges he has had this year.

George Martin was quoted and has emphatically denied speaking to any newspaper.

The Mail on Sunday has continued to stand by its story. When I spoke with WENN at the end of the week, the agency was swift to cooperate, and immediately released the key evidence -- the transcript of the full interview and the text of the story it subsequently sold to the Mail on Sunday. I was subsequently allowed to hear and make a copy of the Harrison sequence of the interview tape. I noticed the relaxed, conversational style of Sir George's response. This was not a medical bulletin or indiscreet revelation. Just a carefully worded reply to a query, which emphasized Harrison's general philosophy.

At this stage WENN had not noticed the insertion of the nine-word phrase into the story, but the agency was already displeased with the unauthorized actions of Desborough in manipulating a feature piece into an unpleasant tabloid story. After my brief exchange with Desborough in midweek, in which the editor curtly told me that the story was accurate, he left London on a previously booked vacation to the island of Ibiza off the Spanish coast. His employers have not yet been able to challenge him about his misdeeds.

I telephoned Nicholl at the Mail on Sunday. She reiterated that the paper stood by its story. She was absolutely confident of it. "We've got it on tape" she explained. I asked her about the use of the negative quote from Dr. Cavalli that no other newspaper had used. She didn't claim to have secured that herself. She assumed that since it had been in the Daily Mail previously that "it must be correct." I asked her why no one else had got that quote. "Probably because we got it exclusively" she said, though she made it clear that she had no personal knowledge of this. When I asked what efforts she had made to corroborate the story with representatives of Harrison or Sir George she suddenly clammed up. "I don't want to be quoted in a newspaper piece, so this conversation is all off the record," she said.

I told her that if she wished to go off the record from that point on that I would naturally accept that, but that it was not possible, or accepted journalistic practice, to go off the record retroactively. She informed me that she felt she must pass the matter to her news editor, Paul Field, who would phone me back in an hour or two. Thirty seconds later Field telephoned and identified himself and then went immediately off the record.

After talking to Field, I called back the paper and asked for its most senior executive. I was put through to Russell Forgham, the Mail on Sunday's managing editor. He was polite but cautious. I asked him outright about the key matter and he was unequivocal. "The quotes from Sir George were on tape. We have heard the tapes and we stand by our story." And so the story lies ...

Friday, WENN confirmed that Desborough had resigned from his job in the morning. In a phone call, an executive at the news agency said, "James Desborough no longer works for the company. He has resigned is all I can say."

Harrison is continuing to recover from his medical travails of the past few months, Sir George is a more wary man and a series of interviews that had been lined up with American media to promote his CD box set have been canceled by Adam Sharp.

Recent Stories