A British man who heroically helped save 12 Thai children from drowning fought back tears as he said Elon Musk's "pedo guy" comment left him "humiliated, dirtied and ashamed" in his first interview since losing the case.

Vern Unsworth, who was the first foreign helper on the scene during the cave rescue last year, became embroiled in a row with the tech tycoon after the rescuer dismissed Mr Musk's plans to build a small submarine to help the boys.

After this, the billionaire tweeted that Mr Unsworth was a "pedo guy", and was subsequently taken to court for defamation. The jury decided that no reasonable person would understand the tweets to mean that Musk was calling Unsworth a paedophile.

Mr Unsworth, from St Albans, on Wednesday morning made a solemn appearance on Good Morning Britain, claiming the entrepreneur set out to "destroy him".

He said: "I was humiliated, dirtied, ashamed.

"He set out to destroy me, physiologically I am a tough guy. Some of this stuff he got out of the private investigators was disgusting."

The diver said he accepted the decision of the jury but that the claim Mr Musk made against him had hurt him deeply.

Elon Musk maintains that he made the comments as an ill-judged joke.