A BBC presenter has admitted making up a confession that he killed a lover dying of Aids by smothering him with a pillow.
Ray Gosling, 71, pleaded guilty at Nottingham Magistrates' Court to a charge of wasting police time.
The presenter, who appeared in court wearing jeans and a suit jacket, carrying a plastic carrier bag, told the court: "Digby Johnson, my solicitor, tells me technically I am guilty.
"I just want to say, very clearly and very strongly, sorry to my lover's family and for the distress I have caused them and sorry that apparently I have wasted police time."
Gosling will be sentenced later after speaking to probation officers, the court heard.
The veteran broadcaster and gay rights campaigner made his false confession on a BBC East Midlands Inside Out programme on death and dying broadcast in February, then repeated it in news interviews the next day.
Gosling first stood up, denying the charge, saying: "In my heart and in my head I plead not guilty." But after a short adjournment with solicitor Digby Jones, the pensioner admitted the charge.
The court heard a criminal investigation started on February 16 and Gosling was arrested on the following day on suspicion of murder. He was interviewed five times over two days, repeating the claims and giving details of the alleged mercy killing.
But in the fourth interview, after an overnight stay in a police cell, Gosling admitted he had not been present at the death and had made up the story about putting a pillow over the man's face. He told police: "I must've been thinking away from the media pressure that I've previously had."
"I think I might've got carried away by hearing other people's stories of how they were going to or had done their partners in."
