Undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood, known as the “Fake Sheikh,” has been found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Mahmood, 53, was found to have tampered with evidence in the collapsed drugs trial of singer Tulisa Contostavlos.
For more than 20 years his stories have made front page news and have helped send people to prison, but the verdict throws new doubt on his tactics and evidence.
The court heard that Miss Contostavlos had been targeted by the self-styled “king of the sting” who posed as an influential film producer who wanted her to star in a Hollywood blockbuster.
Mahmood – a former News Of The World investigations editor – met the singer at the Metropolitan Hotel in London and she allegedly arranged for him to be sold half an ounce of cocaine by one of her contacts for £800. The former N-Dubz star and X Factor judge was later arrested and charged with being concerned in the supply of a class A drug, after Mahmood handed evidence to police.
But her trial was eventually thrown out, the Old Bailey was told, after driver Smith was found to have changed his police statement, removing comments that she made to him expressing her disapproval of hard drugs. As Smith drove Miss Contostavlos home to Hertfordshire, she allegedly spoke about a family member who had a drugs problem. When he was interviewed by police about the journey more than a year later, Smith, of Dereham, Norfolk, recalled the conversation.
But a day later, after speaking to Mahmood and emailing him his draft police statement, the singer’s anti-drugs comments were removed, the court heard.
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Referring to Mahmood, prosecutor Sarah Forshaw QC said: “He knew that if it could be shown that he had acted improperly as an agent provocateur, inducing Miss Contostavlos to do something she would not otherwise do, his own credibility and standing and the prospect of conviction in the case might both be severely damaged.”
Already three cases based on Mahmood’s evidence have been abandoned and another 25 have been referred to the Crown Prosecution Service, six have been taken up by the Criminal Cases Review Commission and another 18 people want to take civil legal action against him.
He will be sentenced on 21 October.
