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Dr Raj Persuad faced fresh controversy last night when it was revealed that his public apology for plagiarising four articles from other authors for his book From The Edge Of The Couch, published in 2003, was also plagiarised.

Persuad said "I am very sorry for any distress my actions caused. I had not meant to willingly plagiarise anyone else, but I got confused. At the time I was working very hard and was very tired and stressed out, and lacked a proper support structure to ensure mistakes were not made".

However, an American academic, Mike Lerner, has come forward to say that Persuad's apology is word-for-word the same as his own for stealing his contemporaries' works, back in 2001 in New York.

"I can't believe he's stolen my apology", he angrily blasted, "I want some credit".

Persuad said he had not realised that the apology was lifted, as he had been very tired and stressed out when he made it, three days ago.