Simpson plans to sue over disputed evidence

OJ Simpson hinted last night that he plans to sue detectives who accused him of murdering his former wife, Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman.

Speaking in a live ITV interview, he claimed a lot of the evidence produced in court against him was fabricated and declared he would sue people once his own legal battles had finished - he still faces a civil prosecution in the US.

Later the fallen American football hero complained that chat show hosts Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan did not give him enough time to answer their questions properly. "It went real quick,'' he said outside the Hyde Park Hotel, in Knightsbridge, west London.

During a heated 15-minute exchange with the husband and wife team, Mr Simpson said he understood why people think he committed the murders despite being cleared of the double killing. He claimed daily television coverage of the murder trial turned the public against him. ''I can't really blame them. If I was exposed to what they were, daily, after I had been to work, I would have thought the same,'' he said.

He admitted he had been on the verge of suicide after the murders, claiming he sped away from police in his Bronco because he was hurt by the suspicions he was responsible. ''Essentially I was being attacked for the first time in my life. I wasn't used to it. I was hurt. I was in a lot of pain and I just wanted the pain to stop.''

Mr Simpson, 48, said he asked a friend to take him to his ex-wife's grave, only to find the police had cordoned off the area. He said his friend called the Los Angeles Police Department as they were on the freeway. ''At some point we were spotted." He said media reports that he was intending to flee to Mexico were false, adding he was only carrying his passport as a matter of routine.

He was questioned about a note he had left, saying: "Don't feel sorry for me, I have had a great life." Asked if this had been a suicide note, he replied: ''For the first time in my life I was suffering some despair.''

Pressed on why he did not give evidence in court, he said he wanted to but was advised against it by his defence team.

He said he only once became physically violent against his ex-wife on New Year's Eve 1989. Asked why she left photographs of herself battered and bruised in a safe-deposit box with a note saying she wanted the world to know how he had treated her if she should be killed, he said: "There was no note.''

The interview - his first British TV appearance since he was cleared of the killings - was part of his publicity tour here, likely to net him pounds 100,000.