Mayor Rob Ford admitted repeated statements he has made about an incident involving Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale are inaccurate in a two-page written apology issued Wednesday evening.

In the apology, Ford confirms that many aspects of Dale’s account of that night are true, including that no pictures were taken of the mayor’s home or backyard and that Dale never set foot on the property, nor was he looking over the fence.

“There was no basis for me to say that Mr. Dale was ever in my backyard or on my property and I should not have said that. Accordingly, I apologize to Mr. Dale for the inaccurate manner in which I described the incident of May 2012,” Ford wrote in the letter, which was released by his chief of staff, Dan Jacobs, outside his city hall office.

“I am unaware of any pictures Mr. Dale took with his phone of land near my property, and therefore I apologize to Mr. Dale if the words I spoke to Mr. (Conrad) Black left the impression that Mr. Dale had taken photographs of my backyard,” Ford wrote.

He added that was no basis “for any insinuations I made. I should not have said what I did, and I wholly retract my statements and apologize to Mr. Dale without reservation for what I said. I sincerely hope that Mr. Dale will accept my personal apology for my comments and all harm my words may have caused him.”

Dale has accepted the mayor’s apology and will no longer pursue a defamation lawsuit against Ford, he said.

“I sincerely appreciate Mayor Ford’s complete retraction and unqualified apology, and I’m very glad the truth is no longer in dispute,” Dale said. “I won’t be taking legal action against the mayor, and I’m looking forward to getting back to work.”

This was the mayor’s second attempt at an apology over his comments on the incident. The first came Tuesday during a council meeting, when he delivered a prepared statement that blamed members of the media for their interpretation of his words. Dale said that first apology “did not come close to doing what I had asked.”

The mayor and ZoomerMedia, the company that owns Vision TV, were each served with a libel notice late last week.

Ford made the comments in question during an interview with Black on his television show The Zoomer . Black asked Ford to describe the most “offensive events” involving the media. He discussed a May 2, 2012, incident when he confronted Dale as the reporter was investigating the mayor’s attempt to purchase parkland adjacent to Ford’s home.

“I guess the worst one was Daniel Dale in my backyard taking pictures,” Ford said during the interview, which aired twice on the network.

“I have little kids. When a guy’s taking pictures of little kids, I don’t want to say the word, but you start thinking, you know, what’s this guy all about?”

A police investigation with full access to Dale’s cellphone found no pictures from that night and no cause to charge the reporter with trespassing or any other crime.

“You’d hope you could work in a political environment where lawsuits weren’t necessary to get politicians to tell the truth and to get politicians to behave themselves,” said Councillor Adam Vaughan, a frequent Ford critic, after the second apology was issued.

“Another day, another apology,” Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong said, saying Ford’s repeated offences and apologies are “a terrible distraction, and it’s just sad that it’s gotten to this level.”

Councillor Joe Mihevc said he was pleased that “peace has broken out.”

“It’s nice to see the mayor has learned to apologize fully and unambiguously. … It’s a sign bullies can be confronted and they can be pushed back, but it requires dogged persistence, which Daniel Dale showed.”

Councillor Pam McConnell was not so sure. She was on the receiving end of a Ford apology — after he knocked her over in council chambers — that she felt came up short as well.

The more important question is why these events happen at all, she said. “The mayor has become very reckless both physically and verbally, around smearing or hurting or endangering people's lives,” she said.

“He did that to (Dale) with his words and he did that to me with his actions,” she said, adding the mayor has never asked her if she recovered from the whiplash she says she suffered as a result of being bowled over by Ford.

Deputy Mayor Kelly said he was relieved the threat of legal action was over, but not convinced it would change the current municipal atmosphere.

“Who knows? It’s an election year,” he said. “And good for Daniel. He stuck up for himself on a critical issue in his life.”

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam said the mayor should have gone even further with the second apology.

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“I think the mayor should get in front of a camera ... after a half-hearted apology (Tuesday) and shifting the burden of blame to his neighbours, and now he issues a quiet letter from his lawyer,” said Wong-Tam.

The mayor’s brother, Councillor Doug Ford, said he was glad to hear the lawsuit won’t go on. “I don’t know how much more sincere he could be. It was sincere as you can get, so let’s move on.”

Dale had decided to pursue a defamation lawsuit independently, but had the full financial support of the Toronto Star. The libel notice called on Ford and ZoomerMedia to “retract the false and defamatory statements in their entirety” as well as apologize to Dale “publicly, abjectly, unreservedly and completely.”

ZoomerMedia issued a statement late Wednesday night saying the network regrets its role in broadcasting Ford's words.

“We have always believed that this was primarily a matter between Mr. Dale and Mr. Ford. However, we sincerely regret the part ZoomerMedia played in broadcasting the offending words spoken by Mr. Ford, and apologize for that. We can confirm that those words will never again be broadcast on any of our television outlets or websites,” said the statement emailed by a spokesperson.

After the statement was issued, Dale said he would not pursue legal action against ZoomerMedia.

“I appreciate Zoomer's statement. While it's hard to understand how the mayor's comments made it to air, I won't be taking legal action,” he said.

>With files from Joel Eastwood and Betsy Powell

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