Focus: From 'man of integrity' to 'outcast' in one week

He may not have betrayed the Royal Family, writes James Morrison, but Paul Burrell has certainly exposed the hypocrisy of the tabloids

It was the interview that everybody wanted, and some were prepared to pay a million for. But when Paul Burrell finally decided to share his secrets with a tabloid newspaper the agreement was made not with a labyrinthine contract but with a single handshake.

The editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan had offered £300,000, which was substantially less than his rivals. But crucially he also gave a dazed and shattered Mr Burrell the chance to tell his extraordinary story in his own words. A cynical mind might have dismissed Mr Morgan's assurances as persuasive platitudes, but to the butler at the centre of the biggest royal scandal in years they signalled only one thing: escape.

Following the initial euphoria of his public vindication at the Old Bailey, Mr Burrell had spent last weekend in nerveless, purgatorial limbo, according to friends. Bewildered and emotionally drained, he had fretted as the offers tumbled in. He was not worried by the principle of speaking out. After months of enforced silence, there was so much he wanted to say. Rather, what stalled him was the creeping sense that there was only one kind of story people wanted to read – or that the newspapers would deign to print, let alone buy. An early, £500,000 bid from one group confirmed his fears, accompanied as it was by the blunt proviso that the former servant would have to "dish the dirt" on the Princess of Wales and her various lovers. Similar demands were made by News International and the Daily Mail, both of which are rumoured to have waved cheques worth up to £1m. The bids continued to soar the longer he held out. After the Mirror deal became known, one paper quadrupled its offer to £2m.

That Mr Burrell resisted the temptation to tell all at the first opportunity must, for the time being at least, count in his favour. A £2m book contract apparently awaits his signature, but he has yet to say anything that an objective observer would construe as betrayal.

However, anyone reading those papers who did not capture his signature over the past week would have thought he had behaved like a two-a-penny cad. The Mail had described Mr Burrell as "a man of integrity" – but after spurning the paper's advances he was portrayed as "isolated" and "an outcast". The Sun had praised him for standing by the Princess "through tears and tantrums" – but after rejecting its money he was "selling out".

The stance adopted by these newspapers seems all the more hypocritical in light of their own continued attempts to edge in on the unfolding Burrell story. Having failed to sign up the star, they dedicated every available resource to a line of enquiry apparently overlooked by the Mirror: a rape in the royal household. It remains to be seen whether this will turn out to yield more secrets than the interview they missed.

Piers Morgan remains pleased with what he paid for, however tame his rivals claims it turned out to be, and the editor praises the part his reporter Steve Dennis played in winning Mr Burrell's trust. "Steve could have run countless front page exposés at any stage in the past five years but he has lived and breathed the Burrell family and when the big one came Dennis landed the biggest fish of all".

The deal was done through Mr Burrell's new agent, Dave Warwick, until now the guardian of a roster of minor TV personalities. The best his client list could previously muster was Carol Smillie, presenter of Changing Rooms. "Piers Morgan was the only editor who came and said he could tell his story as he wanted to tell it," Mr Warwick explains. "That's why we went with him, no other reason. I've had journalists threaten me. I've had journalists threaten my staff to get the exclusive. Paul put himself in my hands, and Piers was the one I chose."

Perhaps in jest, perhaps not, he adds: "I'm from the North, and we all wear clogs up here. We say what we think about things and take people at face value. Somebody called me the other day and said, 'you are the Max Clifford of the north'. I found that quite offensive. I'm not like other publicists. I don't mess around and I try to do everything with a shake of the hand."

Mr Burrell was originally brought to meet the agent by a friend, in the weeks leading up to the impromptu climax of his trial. When it collapsed and the call came through from "Paul's people", Mr Warwick says he had to hastily disengage himself from a more routine conversation with Ms Smillie.

His obvious enthusiasm for the financial potential of the deals the butler could now do is tempered by an air of benign paternalism. "The deal's done on a game show," he says excitedly. "It's going to be called Paul Burrell's What the Butler Saw, and it'll be absolutely brilliant. We're talking twice as big as Who Wants to be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link put together.

"The bloke behind it is a genius. He invented The Krypton Factor, and brought over things like Wheel of Fortune and Stars in Their Eyes. He thought up the idea of Busman's Holiday in the bath."

Focusing on the personal qualities of his new charge, he adds: "Paul is a lovely, genuine bloke who simply didn't want to betray Diana or her sons. That's how he came to me. He's a very innocent sort of man, but he has an aura about him and I honestly believe that if I'd never heard of him before in my life I still would have taken him on."