LONDON - The wife of the British Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, yesterday instructed her lawyer to write to Granada TV and the former", Prison Service chief, Mr Derek Lewis, denying claims that she had urged her husband to cut the nutritional content of food served to Britain's prisoners.
Granada TV's World in Action programme, containing an interview with Mr Lewis in which he made the allegations about Mrs Howard, went ahead as planned last night despite the lawyer's call not to broadcast the allegations.
The lawyer, Mr John Turnbull, has also demanded apologies and retractions from the Observer and the Sunday Times newspapers, while Penguin, the publishers of a book by Mr Lewis, will be told that it is expected not to distribute the book containing the claims.
Mr Lewis told World in Action that he was taken aside by Mr Howard's political adviser, Mr David Cameron, in 1994 and told that Mrs Howard believed "the prison code's requirements to provide a balanced and nutritious diet was somewhat too generous for prisoners".
Mr Lewis was sacked by Mr Howard in 1995 after the escape of inmates from Parkhurst Prison.