The Crown Prosecution Service has dropped a case against a doctor and a pharmacist because it relied on evidence provided by Mazher Mahmood.
He wrote a Sunday Times article in September 2012 about the two men - Dr Majeed Ridha and Murtaza Gulamhusein - in which it was claimed they had risked women's lives by illegally selling abortion pills.
They were arrested, but the CPS told Southwark crown court 10 days ago, on 5 September, that it would offer no evidence against them.
The prosecutor's decision was related to the collapse of the trial against the singer Tulisa Contostavlos, which followed Mahmood's claim - in the Sun on Sunday - that she had been involved in a drug deal.
A CPS spokesman said there was "no longer a realistic prospect of conviction" in the case against Ridha and Murtaza. It is just one of the cases being reviewed in the light of the Contostavlos controversy.
The judge stayed her trial on 21 July this year because he said there were "strong grounds for believing Mr Mahmood told me lies" about his dealings with a witness and that "the underlying purpose of these lies was to conceal the fact that he had been manipulating the evidence."
Mahmood was immediately suspended from the Sun and is the subject of an ongoing and rigorous internal inquiry.
Although there were suggestions after the collapsed Contostavlos trial that Mahmood might face a perjury charge, the police have refused to confirm or deny whether any action will be taken against him.
NB: Mahmood, known as the "fake sheikh", worked for the News of the World from December 1991 until it was closed down during the phone hacking scandal in July 2011. He was then assigned to the Sunday Times until he joined the Sun on Sunday.
Sources: PA Media Lawyer/BBC
