The undercover reporter Mazher Mahmood conspired to change a witness statement that showed the pop star Tulisa Contostavlos disapproved of hard drugs because he feared it would expose him as a “trickster who tried to lure people into criminal activity”, a jury was told.
Evidence that the former N-Dubz singer and X Factor judge disapproved of drugs was “airbrushed out” to protect his “king of the sting” reputation and to ensure Contostavlos’s prosecution – for allegedly arranging for the journalist to be sold £800-worth of cocaine – was not in jeopardy, the Old Bailey heard.
Mahmood, 53, and his driver, Alan Smith, 67, are accused of tampering with evidence in the drug trial of Contostavlos, which collapsed in July 2014 after it emerged Smith had allegedly changed his police statement to remove comments that the singer allegedly made expressing her disapproval of hard drugs.
Neither Mahmood nor Smith elected to give evidence in their defence. “The conspiracy to pervert the course of justice is now a conspiracy of silence,” the prosecutor, Sarah Forshaw QC, said in her closing submission.
“You may think if they were innocent men with nothing to hide, wouldn’t they be shouting it from the rooftops in front of you,” she told the jury.
The court heard that Mahmood, known as the “Fake Sheikh”, posed as a bogus Bollywood film producer and flew Contostavlos first class to Las Vegas to discuss the possibility of a lead role in an “Oscar-winning film” alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and red carpet treatment at Cannes.
He then plied her and two associates with cocktails and a drink called Platinum at a further meeting at London’s Metropolitan hotel during which Contostavlos allegedly arranged for Mahmood to be sold half an ounce of cocaine by one of her contacts, the jury heard. As they were being driven home to Hertfordshire by Smith in the early hours, Contostavlos allegedly said she disapproved of hard drugs because a family member had a drug problem, the court was told.
Smith, who worked as Mahmood’s driver for 20 years, later put this in a police statement. He changed the statement 24 hours later after a “flurry” of emails and texts to Mahmood, and the comments about her disapproval of drugs were removed, the prosecution alleges.
Forshaw said the statement was changed as Mahmood was about to appear at a pre-trial hearing that would shine a spotlight on his methods and he had lied to the pre-trial judge when he said he had not discussed the statement with Smith, she said.
Mahmood “liked to be thought of and lauded as the master of subterfuge”, the court heard. The Contostavlos investigation was one of the first he conducted after the joining the Sun following the closure of the News of the World. He would have “wanted to make his mark, bring in a big story, one that would sell newspapers and show off to his new employers”, said Forshaw.
Mahmood knew that at the pre-trial hearing he would have to show “he had not lured her unfairly into doing something she would not otherwise do. She was not to be entrapped,” she claimed.
Forshaw added: “He knew his methods would be on trial.” He could not be seen to be “inciting” Contostavlos to commit a criminal offence as, if entrapment could be shown, there was a risk her trial could be stayed, or evidence excluded, she said.
Mahmood wanted to be the “swashbucking hero” and would have known “he had to deal with a number of issues if the prosecution was not to fail on the grounds of unfairness”, Forshaw said, adding: “He would be exposed as a trickster who tried to lure people into criminal activity. There was a good deal at stake.”
When Smith then “let slip” to Contostavlos’s lawyers that he had emailed his statement to Mahmood, it “threw an unfortunate spanner in the works”, said Forshaw.
The content of texts and emails between Mahmood and Smith had been deleted, the jury heard. One of Smith’s mobile phones, containing “potentially incriminating” evidence, was crushed when a car fell off a jack on to it, smashing the handset, said Forshaw. The jury would have to decide what they thought of its “untimely demise”.
“You have to get up really, really early in this case to work out what is going on,” Forshaw told the jury. “This is not a case where there are fingerprints and a knife and a trail of blood leading to the defendant. This is a case where you have to look carefully and with common sense at all the strands of evidence if you are really going to find out what is going on.
“When you put them all together, they lead you to the compelling inference that these two men put their heads together to change that statement , a compelling inference that demands an explanation and you have had none.”
Mahmood and Smith both deny conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
The case continues on Thursday when the defence will make closing speeches.
