Former prime minister Gordon Brown has denied giving the Sun permission to run a story on his son’s medical condition.Brown told the Leveson Inquiry today the NHS Fife board had sent him a letter of apology, explaining it was highly likely medical details about his son Fraser's cystic fibrosis were leaked to the press by a member of staff.Brown – who told the inquiry he had tried to keep his children out of the public eye – contradicted evidence given to the inquiry by former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, who said she had sought permission from the Brown family before publishing the story.The newspaper had claimed the story came from the father of a fellow patient.He said: “I find it sad that even now in 2012 member so the News International staff are coming to this inquiry and maintain this fiction that a story that could only have been achieved or obtained through medical information or through me and my wife leaking it, which we never did of course, was obtained in another way.“If any mother or any father was presented with a choice as to whether a four month old son’s medical condition, our child’s medical condition, should be broadcast on the front page of a tabloid newspaper and you had a choice in this matter, I don’t think there’s any parent in the land would have made the choice that we are told we made, to give explicit permission for that to happen.”Asked why his wife Sarah had continued a friendship with Brooks after the incident, Brown called her “one of the most forgiving people I know”.The inquiry previously heard Sarah Brown wrote Brooks a series of personal letters between 2006 and 2011.The MP denied he had “declared war” on Rupert Murdoch and said an alleged telephone call with the proprietor, following the Sun's withdrawal of support for Labour in 2009, never took place.Robert Jay QC, inquiry counsel, questioned the former prime minister on the alleged Murdoch phone call. Brown denied the call had ever taken place, saying he had spoken to the proprietor on November 10, 2009, about the war in Afghanistan. The conversation was followed up with an email and three letters.Brown said he was “shocked and surprised” the inquiry heard from Murdoch, and other witnesses including former Cabinet minister Lord Mandelson, that a conversation about the Sun switching support from Labour to the Conservative Party transpired.Murdoch told the inquiry in April that Brown had said: “Well, your company has declared war on my government and we have no alternative but to make war on your company.”Brown admitted he had a good relationship with Murdoch but said the idea he was influenced by his views while in office was “frankly ridiculous”.He added: “I think the similar background [we shared] made it interesting because I think I understood where many of his views came from. And I do also that he’s been a very successful businessman.”Brown told the inquiry he instructed his political advisers – including Charlie Whelan and Damian McBride – to follow strict rules and denied asking them to brief against senior ministers, including John Major, Tony Blair and former Chancellor Alistair Darling. He said any claims his staff gave anonymous briefings to the media were without his knowledge or sanction.Last month, former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell told the inquiry there had been a “real problem” with Whelan, Brown’s Treasury adviser. McBride was forced to resign in 2009 after it was revealed he sent a series of email smears about Conservative ministers.He added: “I can say to you that it is absolutely clear nobody in my position would have instructed any briefing against a senior minister, and Alistair Darling was a friend of mine as well as a senior colleague.”