Wrongly-accused murder suspect Colin Stagg has received a heartfelt letter of apology from the partner of Rachel Nickell – the woman he was once accused of her killing.

The Roehampton resident this week revealed how he received a letter from Andre Hanscombe, apologising for his part in Mr Stagg’s ordeal after being wrongly accused of murder.

The letter also revealed the extent of the police’s so-called “whispering campaign” against Mr Stagg, despite his acquittal in 1994.

In his letter, Mr Hanscombe admitted that for a decade “I had been led to believe by officers of the Metropolitan Police that they considered you responsible for my partner’s death”.

He wrote: “I am sorry for the ordeal that you have endured virtually the whole length of this very sad affair, and any part that I might have had personally to make it worse.”

The 46-year-old tennis coach, who lives in France with his son, accepted that he was led to believe Mr Stagg was “wrongly acquitted”.

It took until November 2004, when a police phone call informed him Broadmoor patient Robert Napper was to be charged, before he started to change his mind.

He added: “I know now that you were, and are, an innocent man who was mistakenly charged. I wish you a long, happy and productive life.”

At his flat in Roehampton, Mr Stagg, 46, said: “It was a really kind and honest gesture. I know how difficult it must have been for him to make.

“For him, thanks to the police, I was the man who destroyed the love of his life. After all those years it must have been very hard to come to terms with the proof that I was innocent. I accept his apology with gratitude. It means a lot to me.

“But what I can’t accept are the lengths the Met went to in trying to blacken my name. Officers quietly told him and Rachel’s family they weren’t seriously looking for anyone else.”

Rachel Nickell was stabbed 49 times in front of her two-year-old son Alex on Wimbledon Common in 1992.

Stagg was charged a year later but acquitted in October 1994 after an Old Bailey judge savaged the prosecution case. Last year he got £706,000 in compensation from the Home Office for wrongful arrest.