Baltimore Ravens director of security Darren Sanders has denied that he had full knowledge of what transpired in the Ray Rice assault case hours after the incident took place.

A report from ESPN claimed that Sanders received a first-hand account of the attack from an Atlantic City policeman in the immediate aftermath of the event, which he then relayed to the organisation.

However, Sanders has insisted that he was not allowed to see the CCTV footage from the lift where the assault took place.

He said in a statement: "I did not receive an account of what happened in the elevator 'within hours' of the incident. Within a couple of days, I asked the casino and the Atlantic City Police Department for a copy of any videotape of the incident.

"They said they could not release a copy of the videotape to me. Some days later — I believe it was on February 25 - I spoke to an Atlantic City police official again, asking again whether I could get a copy of the tape or, if not, whether I could come to his New Jersey office and view it.

"He said I could not, but he did offer to view the tape and describe what he saw. (As I understand it, he was describing a raw video, not the 'cleaned up', 'smoothed out' version that appeared on TMZ.)"

Sanders also revealed that the policeman was unsure of the physical contact Rice inflicted on his then-fiancee due to the poor quality of the footage available.

Sanders added: "As he described it, Janay [Palmer] appeared to initiate the altercation, but they both spit at and struck each other, resulting in Janay falling and hitting her head against the wall railing.

"The officer could not tell from the video whether Ray slapped or punched her, but Ray told me very clearly that he did not punch her."

The Ravens released Rice two weeks ago after TMZ released footage of his assault on his then-fiancee in the lift.