“It’s hurt me, it’s hurt me this has,” Benn said in an interview with Piers Morgan on Talk TV. “I didn’t think I was going to make it through this period.

“I was shamed for something I hadn’t even done, it’s hard because I felt like I was on death row for something I haven’t even done.

“If I had done something wrong I’m human, I’d raise my hands to it ‘I made a mistake’, whatever it is I raise my hands. Never this, and I felt seven years of hard work and sacrifice and leaving my family and the image I maintain was just ruined at somebody else’s incompetence. It’s been hard for the family.”

The welterweight admitted that the saga had left him with suicidal thoughts: “I didn’t think I’d see another day. Yeah [I was feeling suicidal], yeah I’d say so, and it upsets me now because I don’t know how I got so bad.

“I got in a really bad way about it. You’ve got to remember, if you think I’m innocent or if you don’t think I’m innocent, I am innocent.”

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