Mayor Rob Ford should apologize to Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale for his “beyond the pale” comments in an interview with Conrad Black, Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly said.

“Again, it fits into a pattern that changes the focus from him to someone else and in this instance, it goes beyond the pale and I think there should be an apology for that,” Kelly told reporters in a city hall scrum on Tuesday.

Kelly was responding to Ford’s TV interview with Black in which Ford suggested Dale was a pedophile.

Black, a convicted felon who once controlled a powerful media empire, had asked Ford to recall episodes of “offensive events, abrasive events perpetrated on your and your family by the media.”

Ford started off, “Well, I guess the worst was Daniel Dale.”

The incident happened on the evening of May 2, 2012, when Ford confronted Dale who had been standing in a plot of land beside Ford’s house.

“Daniel Dale is in my backyard taking pictures. I have little kids,” Ford told Black on a taped interview that aired on Vision TV Monday night.

“He’s taking pictures of little kids. I don’t want to say that word but you start thinking what this guy is all about.”

The mayor laughed as he said, “Lucky he fled on foot because I was upset, because that’s just crossing the line.”

Ford called police and said surveillance cameras at his home captured Dale’s head “bobbing up and down” over his backyard fence. Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, said Dale was a “peeping Tom” who was “in my backyard,” “lurking in the bushes,” “standing on cinder blocks” and “taking pictures of my kids and family.”

After a week-long investigation which included a review of the surveillance camera footage, police filed no charges against Dale, saying there was no evidence the reporter was on the mayor’s property or looked over the fence.

Nor were there photos or videos on the BlackBerry Dale dropped as he ran from Ford, police said.

Toronto Star editor Michael Cooke responded to Ford’s comments to Black with the statement: “Just when you think Mayor Ford has said the most stupid thing, such as letting the whole world know about his sex life at home, he tops himself with another outrage. Mr. Ford calling reporter Daniel Dale a pedophile tells you all you need to know about our mayor’s brain. So sad for all of us.”

Dale said Tuesday, “The mayor’s comments are categorically false. As I have said consistently since the week of the incident, I took no photos of the mayor’s family, home or property; I never set foot on his property; I never stood on blocks; I never peered over his fence or jumped to look over the fence.

“I was there simply because I had learned that the mayor had made a rare request to purchase public land. Before I wrote an article, I wanted to make sure I knew what the land looked like, where exactly it was situated, and how it might benefit him.”

In a combative scrum with reporters Tuesday, Doug Ford said, “I find it pretty repulsive that the media would actually condone hiding in someone’s backyard . . . lurking in the bushes taking pictures over his fence.”

Ford denied the mayor was implying Dale was a pedophile.

“What he was very simply implying, the media shouldn’t be hiding in the bushes, not only at his house. They’ve hidden in the bushes up at my cottage. They go down to Florida.”

Kelly said Rob Ford has ignored his advice privately and now publicly to watch what he says, including Ford’s suggestion that the police investigation of him was triggered by a police chief unhappy with proposed budget cuts.

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“I suspect he’s getting other advice that runs contrary to what most of us would give him and again I think that’s regrettable. He doesn’t appear to be someone who listens and follows advice closely.”

Kelly said he wasn’t advocating reporters stop questioning the Ford brothers.

“The mayor and his brother have every right to participate in this debate,” Kelly said. “But I and others wish that the tone and the content would engage their colleagues on council and the public in a way that makes the conversation more productive than it has been otherwise.”

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