The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Fake sheikh jailed over Tulisa case
‘King of the Sting’ tampered with evidence
Fake Sheikh Mazher Mahmood has been jailed for 15 months for tampering with evidence in the collapsed drugs trial of pop star Tulisa Contostavlos.
The 53-year-old “King of the Sting” and his driver Alan Smith, 67, were found guilty of plotting to pervert the course of justice in order to “scalp” the former X Factor judge.
The reputation Mahmood had hoped to boost by getting Miss Contostavlos convicted now lies in tatters as he was immediately sacked by News UK.
The media giant said it was preparing to “vigorously” defend any civil claims brought over Mahmood’s past stings.
In the wake of the Tulisa trial collapse, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped a number of live cases which had involved Mahmood and reviewed 25 past convictions.
Six of those involving mainly highprofile individuals have been taken up by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
Following the guilty verdicts last month, it was further announced that 18 civil claims were being launched against Mahmood, which could total up to £800 million.
Sentencing, Judge Gerald Gordon told the pair: “You have been convicted by the jury of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. You, Alan Smith, agreed to and did alter your original witness statement to remove the passage that you both realised could be used to support Tulisa Contostavlos’s case in an entrapment hearing.
“Mazher Mahmood, it was your idea. You were the intended beneficiary and you made use of a loyal person, partly an employee, in order to achieve your purpose.
“The motive was to preserve and enhance your reputation. You wanted another scalp and Miss Contostavlos’s conviction would have achieved that. And to achieve that, when you saw a problem, you were prepared for the court to be deceived.”
Judge Gordon sentenced Smith to 12 months suspended for two years, saying he had been motivated in part by “misguided loyalty”.
Following the sentence, some of Mahmood’s alleged sting victims gathered outside the Old Bailey to call on Parliament to “cleanse this stain on our democracy once and for all”.