My name is Deniz Corday and I started and ran the venue known as The Walton Hop in Surrey for many years from 1958 until 1990.

I want to state that this was not only enormously successful but it brought great happiness to the visitors and I believe, if you asked people, who came to it regularly, how they remembered it, 98% would give you incredibly positive answers and memories; and that's why it lasted 32 years.

It was never a place where sexual predators prowled, any more than any other disco or club in Britain at the time, and the fact that we did not sell or encourage alcohol was a major reason why it was generally so trouble free and successful, giving a totally safe environment for the teenagers who attended. And it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest there could have been a "paedophile ring" there at any time; as I'm gay myself I would have noticed it and put a stop to it as I always considered myself to have great responsibility to the parents, looking after the teenagers at the disco. I have never been with anyone under 16, nor with anyone who didn't want to go with me. Every time the media mentions "paedophiles" at the hop they talk about Jonathan King or Chris Denning - they only did three shows at the hop over the years and I want to make it quite clear that they never came on the dance floor as visitors because adults were simply never, ever allowed on the dance floor. It was a strict rule of mine; never broken.

The behaviour of the media since the unfair prosecution of my friend Jonathan King has been appalling. After his conviction there was another grossly unfair, but successful, attempt to influence the decision of his appeal against sentence. This involved a man who had watched the TV show broadcast by Channel 4, months earlier, claiming that he had been a regular at the Hop and had then been taken to orgies by the TV presenter Matthew Kelly.

Kelly never came to the Hop. Neither did several other of the claimed celebrities, such as Jimmy Savile. I am certain of this for that same reason; adults were not allowed on the dance floor and anyone wanting to come and see me had to be escorted backstage by one of the many security men at all times. Jonathan says he has never even met Kelly and I believe him. He did not meet many of his accusers. The man who started the investigation by going to publicist Max Clifford, Kirk McIntyre, used to beg me to introduce him to Jonathan, when Johnny Reggae was a hit in 1971 (years later he claimed to have been abused by Jonathan in the 1960s). I specifically remember refusing to introduce him to JK again and again, as I knew the boy was a dangerous fantasist and a liar - he had stolen money from many of us, by claiming his mother was dying of cancer, until she personally phoned me and told me it was false.

Indeed, eventually Matthew Kelly was not charged with any offence. By then Jonathan's appeal had failed, as expected, after enormous coverage of the Kelly false allegations and arrest in the papers. At the time I was invaded by dozens of reporters from the media. They came to my flat and offered me a fortune to sell them letters to me from Jonathan in prison. At one point a man who, I was told, was an Editor at the Sun, said they would pay me double the amount offered by any rival. Another reporter then took me into the kitchen and whispered that his Editor had authorised him to double the Sun's offer.

The pressure was incredible. Since the letters contained nothing of any significance I was very tempted by the £4000, but decided I could not do it, to the fury of the journalists.

They seemed not interested in Jonathan or even Kelly; their main concern was Simon Cowell, who they knew had been a good friend to Jonathan. They wanted to set him up at least as gay or, better, as a paedophile. Looking back I can see they would have printed photographic excerpts from Jonathan's letters and then added written pieces about Simon, which they would have invented. That was the way they worked and, I suspect, still do. I remember one man's exact words. "If you admit to me that Simon Cowell is gay and that you saw him and many other celebrities at gay parties and that you had also attended them, then you would be paid some REAL money".

They kept trying to get me to say I had been to orgies, which I never have, and that I saw Cowell there. They made it clear that they didn't care whether or not my allegations were true. They could phrase them to appear so. Another thing that upsets me was that the media always says that Tam Paton attended these orgies. I have to say that I only met Tam twice - first when he brought the Bay City Rollers to do a show at the hop in their very early days, and second when he brought them, after they became famous, to do an interview on stage at the hop.

The journalists told me they got all kinds of information from the police, much of it invented, and paid them for the stories.

As a result of this incredibly unpleasant and stressful experience, I knew never to trust anything I read in the media again. I also learned that the relationship between media and police is extremely unhealthy, if not criminal. The police use the media to set up false cases and the media uses the police to manufacture great stories. I was horrified by this. Never in a million years could I have imagined such a situation. I may have been naive but I simply could not have accepted the corrupt and dishonest activities, unless I had witnessed them first hand. I had 5 sets of people, from 5 big national newspapers, sitting in my flat arguing about how much money to pay someone to lie and make false allegations.

The realisation of this all got me down so badly that I asked them if they could excuse me for a moment, went into my bedroom, sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. The strangest feeling came over me. It made me genuinely ill - what I was then thinking. That I should lie about all these stars, who I didn't know and had never met, and I would be paid, according to the offers, a considerable amount of cash. I made the decision to accept for about 5 minutes, smoking the cigarette, but by the time I had finished it I was completely disgusted with myself for even considering it. For even thinking that I could do that. And immediately, once again, decided to reject all their offers but, because I very nearly lied for money, I can imagine why so many people HAVE lied to the media for money. This taught me one of the most important negative things about the media - the incredible lengths they would go to, in order to construct a great story.

After Jonathan's conviction, one of the police came to visit me in a private and social capacity. He admitted that many pieces of evidence had been manufactured by the police and that witnesses had been assisted in their statements. He said that the lower ranks hated what they had been doing, but they had been under orders from above. At the worst, lies, and, at the least, misunderstandings or confused memories were encouraged and inflated by both police and media, resulting in great stories for the media and convictions of innocent men and women by the police, giving them promotions, praise and increased budgets.

I said much of the above to both JON RONSON and NICK HORNBY, who were making TV programmes about Jonathan, at the time; they never included the positive points, but filmed excerpts probably still exist somewhere. I also said similar things to many newspaper reporters and executives but, naturally, they never printed them. Why ruin a good story? Likewise I spoke at great length to BOB WOFFINDEN, a journalist, during the Leveson Inquiry, but they never called me to give evidence about the relationship between police and media.

This state of affairs is easiest in historical cases, especially when the accused are dead. Even now, years later, lies and manipulated stories appear in some papers and innocent men and women suffer from unjust "justice" and unfair implications. Over the years I've tried so hard, again and again, to persuade some media outlets to reveal the truth, without any success. So I hope that, after my death, maybe people will realise I have nothing to gain by lying, and see the truth in what I have written here. Signed and witnessed by myself, DENIZ CORDAY

17 Church Street, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey