Why would they have to fabricate his quotes? He is either mistaken or, more likely, happy to play along with The Sun to generate manufactured outrage (as The Sun does best) at a complete non-issue. "Man wants to apply for job, told there are no vacancies" wouldn't really capture the reader, would it?
The guy has a letter from the MPS telling him why he cannot currently apply. The Sun has a picture of him holding it. The Sun quotes from the letter. But they don't quote the part of the letter that gives the reason why he cannot apply! Why not? That's what the whole story is supposed to be about! Why quote a bit of meaningless equal opportunities blurb from the end of the letter and not quote the part that actually says 'sorry we're not currently accepting applications because....'? The obvious answer is that quoting the whole letter would prove their story completely manufactured.
They do of course, attempted to maintain the sham of journalistic good form by giving the Met right of reply and sneaking in the real reason why this guy is currently unable to apply with as little fanfare as possible right near the end of the article:
"The Met confirmed Ben had been refused a recruitment pack — but said that the force was not recruiting right now."
Unfortunately, I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that this business of entirely manufacturing news out of nothing is something that The Sun does, and I've been reading them, and comparing them against other papers, for a number of years. I've actually found more inaccuracies in the UK Times than I have in The Sun over the past couple years at least, and far more spin in The Guardian.. If I had something more than your seething, visceral dislike for The Sun to go by I would find your arguments more compelling. They do have a 'certain style' that a lot of people are going to find polarizing, and that's to be expected in a tabloid. I factor all of that in as I read it, and I do believe that the vast majority of readers here at Free Republic are sophisticated and discerning enough to spot a hyperbolic style when they see one.
The Met's reply is the only truly substantive thing that can be pointed to in the article to counter anything that was said previously, and I'm afraid that taking the word of a Government bureaucrat over that of a heroic soldier is not something that I will readily do. In my experience with 'affirmative action' hiring here in the USA, I'm accustomed to those overseeing such policies to lie endlessly about their existence, their implementation and their scope, to keep as much of it secret as is possible and to cover it up if necessary. Of course they will not admit to the press that they turned down a heroic soldier because of his color, that wouldn't be a good career move.
At any rate, hopefully other articles on this matter will eventually appear to either confirm or deny The Sun's treatment of it, but once again I simply don't find the notion of a white male being refused a position because of his color to be out of the ordinary at all; there's nothing even remotely odd about it, as it happens all the time, unfortunately.