SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Love rat Jude Law says sorry to 'all of the people I have hurt

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On set romance: Jude Law was engaged to Alfie co-star Sienna Miller, pictured together at the film's premiere in 2004

With his incorrigible womanising, broken engagement and betrayal with his children's nanny, Jude Law has always seemed one of the most shameless characters in showbusiness.

Now, however, the Oscar-nominated actor has claimed he is full of remorse over the trail of broken hearts he's left in his wake.

'I regret hurting people,' he says. 'It's an awful thing. And trying to gain the forgiveness or the understanding of someone you've hurt, or heal a pain that you may have inflicted, that's where regret hits hard.'

Jude's confession seems to have been inspired by his role, as a fictional pontiff in the forthcoming Sky Atlantic drama, The Young Pope.

'Regret is really interesting,' says Law, 43. 'It's something I think about in terms of lessons learned. In a way, to regret something is almost to regret the lesson learned from it.

'And if you've learned your lesson then it was probably a good thing in some way. F***ing up or being an idiot and having to pay the consequences for that? It's how you learn.'

Current flame: The actor is courting psychologist Phillipa Coan, pictured at Wimbledon

The Talented Mr Ripley star, who is currently courting psychologist Phillipa Coan, fathered a child with Irish-born singer Cat Cavelli, 24, last year but they split up before the baby was born.

He conceived another child in 2009 with 26-year-old American model Samantha Burke, whom he met on the set of Sherlock Holmes. Again, they parted before the birth.

Law claimed he would 'be a fully supportive part of the child's life', but did not meet Burke's baby until she was five months old.

Ex-wife: Law has three children with Sadie Frost, pictured in 2000. The pair divorced in 2003

He has three children with ex-wife Sadie Frost. While playing Cockney lothario Alfie, he embarked on a romance with one of his co-stars, Sienna Miller, 34, and they became engaged.

However, she called off the wedding after he made a public apology to her for sleeping with his children's nanny. He now declares: 'Confession is facing yourself and saying, "You did this and this is the consequence". And absolution is going, to yourself, "I know I did and I learned my lesson." ' That's all right then. 

Mystery over Jeremy Vine's missing £500,000

Money mystery: Jeremy Vine

Cheeky chat show host Graham Norton reportedly accepted a £500,000 annual pay cut when he signed a new BBC deal, but has his colleague Jeremy Vine taken an even bigger hit?

The Radio 2 and Crimewatch presenter has seen the amount of money held in his personal company drop by more than £600,000 in a year.

Newly published accounts reveal that Vine held £253,094 in his business, Jelly Vine Productions, in 2015, compared with £897,569 the previous year. Vine, who declines to comment, faced criticism last year when it was reported that part of his company was owned by his 11-year-old daughter, Martha, and his wife, Rachel.

At the time accountant Richard Murphy said: 'He is perfectly obviously using his company to reduce his tax bill. It is perfectly legal.'

Earnings paid into private companies attract corporation tax at 20 per cent, less than half the 45 per cent income tax on people earning over £150,000.

Having been incarcerated in a small cell in Lebanon for nearly five years in the Eighties, former hostage Terry Waite has clearly become even more appreciative of preserving open spaces. The former aide to the Archbishop of Canterbury is furious about building on the green fields of England. 'I was brought up in the countryside and am fed up by the way it is now proposed that we edge at the green belt and take land,' he tells me. 'Is this how we want England to be?'