Minister was emailed fake photos he claimed to know nothing about

But yesterday the Culture Secretary was left red faced after it emerged that the photos had been emailed to him in advance for his approval.

The pictures were doctored after he arrived too late to pose alongside other local MPs at Tameside General Hospital, near Manchester, in July to publicise the funding of a new development.

Instead, Mr Purnell was photographed separately and his image pasted on to the group shots before they were released to the media and used in a newsletter.

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Now you see him, now you don't: The top picture shows how the photographer 'dropped' a picture of culture secretary James Purnell into the right hand side of the frame, while the bottom picture shows the original, without the minister

The fakery was exposed last month - a fortnight after Mr Purnell urged TV companies to "clean up their act" over fake footage and competition scandals.

The politician dismissed calls for his resignation and blamed the hospital for altering the photos without his knowledge or consent.

But yesterday it emerged that he had been sent two emails by the hospital's chief executive, Christine Green, telling him in advance of the plan to "mock up" the photos by "dropping" him into them.

She also attached copies of the photos for him to look at.

In the first email, dated July 24, four days after the event, Miss Green says: "Dear James, thank you for attending on Friday. I am pleased we were able to catch the photographer so that he could 'drop' you into the photographs."

On September 17, a second email was sent to his parliamentary email address, along with three doctored photographs that were due to be sent to the media.

The chief executive says: "Dear James, I enclose three photographs... which you may wish to use. Figure 1 with 6 people outside is the one being used for the press coverage."

When the pictures were sent out to the press towards the end of last month, however, they were quickly spotted as fakes. Mr Purnell, 37, said at the time: "I didn't think a faked photo would be produced and I didn't see this photo before it went out, and if I had done wouldn't have agreed to it."

Yesterday opposition MPs said the emails undermined his denials.

LibDem culture spokesman Don Foster said: "He is guilty of failing to put the record straight when he knew something had gone wrong."

Mr Purnell's special adviser, Lisa Tremble, insisted last night that he had not read the emails. She said: 'The email address was the general constituency office email.

"James did not see either of these emails or the photo before the story broke and the constituency office did not reply to either email."

Mr Purnell said: "I did not ask for my photo to be used in this way, nor did I authorise it.

"I assumed that it would be clear that the photo of me had been taken separately. These emails did not ask for my authorisation of the photo."