Bernard Madoff, the man behind one of the largest fraud schemes in history, told a Manhattan court on Thursday that he was “so deeply sorry and ashamed” as he pleaded guilty to cheating thousands of investors and was sent to jail.

Speaking extensively for the first time since his December 11 arrest, Mr Madoff told Denny Chin, a US district judge, that he had turned to fraud when his investment business did badly in the recession of the early 1990s.