It's easy to take the moral high ground when another newspaper messes up. There will be a measure of that in the debate around the apology made to Gerry and Kate McCann by the Daily Express and the Daily Star. Contrary to suggestions made more than 100 times in the titles, they now acknowledge that the McCanns were “completely innocent” of any involvement in the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine on May 3 last year, and have paid £550,000 into the Find Madeleine Fund as recompense.

The invisible man at the centre of this story yesterday was Richard Desmond, the rumbustious owner of the Express Group. He declined the opportunity to talk to the Today programme, leaving his titles with no defence, probably because there is none. It has been suggested that the use of the word Madeleine on the front page of the Daily Express put many thousands on its circulation, and that this may have been why his staff felt under pressure to regurgitate fanciful lines cooked up in Portugal. Nor would it have been wise to repeat something that he said to The Times in 2001: “I like to turn a great story into a great-selling front cover. But it's only my opinion. I could be f***ing the whole thing up.”

No one has ever said that Desmond is a pussycat. Like every employer, he has his loyal henchmen who speak of his drive and enthusiasm. Other testimonies are more fun: he has a crude management style that involves a lot of swearing and, twice a day, at 11am and 5pm precisely, a butler brings him a banana on a silver tray. Otherwise he'd eat bananas all day, he has explained. A man with a big appetite, then.

Desmond was born in North London. His father, the managing director of Pearl & Dean screen advertising, went deaf when his son was 6 and the young Desmond became his ears in meetings, learning to cut a deal and to charm. From 14 he lived with his mother in less affluent circumstances and was fat and lonely, he has said.

He left school at 15, sold advertising, and built up his first fortune as the publisher of Asian Babes, Horny Housewives and 41 other top-shelf magazines. He bought the Express Group for £125 million in November 2000, donated £100,000 to the Labour Party and seemed to crave respectability. Instead his rivals continued to refer to him in such epithets as Desmond the Degrader, and he was left to point out that his business empire is entirely legal. He no longer owns the adult magazines, but has kept his adult TV stations and made a success of OK! magazine. In 2006 he said that he makes £1 million a week.

He is 56, married with a son, and owns a Bentley but has been known to fly on easyJet because he likes to observe his readers. As one of his editors put it neatly, he is a stranger to self-doubt.

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