Sky News have admitted to false reporting on the identity of a stowaway who fell from a Kenya Airways plane as it came into land at Heathrow Airport in June.
In a statement released late Thursday, Sky wrote that they had withdrawn the story by Africa correspondent John Sparks, identifying the stowaway as Nairobi airport worker Paul Manyasi
“Sky News regrets that our reporting was founded on misleading information.” The statement read.
The news outlet issued apologies to Colnet, the agency which had been reported to having hired the stowaway “we no longer have conclusive evidence that he worked for the cleaning company Colnet and we apologise to Colnet for suggesting the stowaway was one of their employees.”
The retraction came after the alleged father to the dead stowaway came out and confessed to having misled Sky News Reporters. In an interview with a Kenyan newspaper, the man known as Isaac admitted misleading Sky News after receiving Ksh20,000.
According to the story in the Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation, Isaacs son – named in the report as Shivonje Isaac – is alive and on remand in a Kenyan prison.