An undercover reporter conspired to tamper with evidence in the trial of pop singer Tulisa Contostavlos to protect his reputation and standing as “king of the sting”, a court has heard.
Mazher Mahmood, 53, known as the Fake Sheikh, allegedly plotted with his driver Alan Smith, 67, to change a statement made to police which showed the former N-Dubz singer and X Factor judge disapproved of drugs, a jury was told.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Sarah Forshaw QC told an Old Bailey jury: “Mr Mahmood may be the master of subterfuge and deception, but on this occasion it is he, together with his employee, who has been exposed.”
Mahmood had posed as a wealthy Bollywood producer promising the singer and aspiring actor a lead role in a major film alongside Leonardo DiCaprio. She had allegedly arranged for the journalist to be sold half an ounce (14g) of cocaine by one of her contacts for £800, the jury heard.
The journalist then published an exposé in the Sun and handed his “evidence” to police. Contostavlos faced trial for allegedly being concerned in the supply of the class A drug with Mahmood as the main prosecution witness, a jury heard.
Mahmood and Smith are charged with conspiring together to do an act, namely that Smith would change a draft statement to police with the intention to pervert the course of justice between 22 June and 22 July
Both deny conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Mahmood allegedly had a “vested” interest in the prosecution succeeding. “He liked to call himself the king of sting and had written a book in which he boasted of the number of convictions he was responsible for,” said Forshaw. Smith was his “achilles heel”, she added.
Smith had driven Contostavlos and two associates home after an alcohol-fuelled meeting with Mahmood in London, and later told police the singer had said in the car she disapproved of drugs because a family member was dependent on cocaine.
He told the officer drafting his statement that the singer “seemed really negative about cocaine and expressed her disapproval of drugs”, the jury heard. Smith changed the statement the following day, removing the anti-drugs passage.
Smith’s original statement was helpful to Contostavlos’s defence who, at a pre-trial hearing in June 2014, were arguing the case should be dismissed because she was the “victim of entrapment” and of an “elaborate deceit”, said Forshaw. “It’s how that change of account came about which lies at the heart of this case,”she added.
The prosecution alleged Smith’s statement was changed the day before Mahmood was due to give evidence in that pre-trial hearing, following a “flurry” of texts and emails – since “deleted or destroyed” – between the journalist and his driver during which Mahmood was emailed Smith’s original statement.
“In effect, the hearing in June 2014 put Mr Mahmood and his journalistic process on trial,” said Forshaw. “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.”
During the pre-trial hearing at Southwark crown court, Mahmood was asked if he had discussed with Smith the comments made in the car, and said on oath that he had not. “It must have been obvious to Mr Mahmood he was being asked on oath if he had discussed with Smith the conversation in the car,” said Forshaw. “He deliberately misled the court – not only had he discussed it, but he had been sent a copy of the statement just three days earlier and he had read it.”
The next month Mahmood was called to give evidence in the trial of Contostavlos. On the same morning Smith met Contostavlos’s defence lawyers and told them he had sent Mahmood a copy of his original statement because he was unhappy with it and wanted his advice. “The cat was out of the bag – and not only was the cat out of the bag it was in the hands of the defence solicitors,” said Forshaw.
The following day, as Mahmood continued to give his evidence, he was asked if he had discussed the statement, said Forshaw. This time he replied “yes”. From his out-of-court communications with Smith “he must have known he could no longer sustain” what he had told the judge in the pre-trial hearing, said Forshaw.
Mahmood then told the judge in the Contostavlos trial that he had not discussed the actual evidence with Smith, just the fact he was unhappy with the statement and had not gone into detail, said Forshaw.
The trial of Contostavlos was then halted.
In a statement read to the court, Contostavlos said that after the meeting with Mahmood, whom she believed to be a film producer called Samir Khan, at London’s Metropolitan hotel, she, her PA Gareth Varey and friend Michelle McKenna were all very drunk. She was “hyper drunk” rather than “sleepy drunk” and aware of her surroundings, she said.
She started to sober up as Smith drove for 45 minutes to her Hertfordshire home and her memory of the journey was “quite vague”. She remembered “snippets and bullet points”, she said, including an argument with Varey. She also remembered a “fairly intense” conversation about a relative of hers and her concern about their “hard drugs use”.
The singer said she had discussed these events with her legal team after she had been charged but before any issue over the statement by Smith was raised.
Det Sgt Andrew Nicklin, who took Smith’s statement, said he had drafted it following a telephone conversation with the driver, and read it out over the phone to him. Smith had agreed it and gave no indication he was unhappy with the contents, he said.
The following day Smith contacted him and asked him to remove the passage about the drugs conversation. Nicklin said: “He said he wasn’t sure now if he got it right. His focus was on driving and he asked me to remove it. He said ‘I can’t remember now who said what.’”
He said Smith had described the journey to the singer’s Hertfordshire mansion as “horrendous”, with Varey and Contostavlos arguing, and Varey trying to get out of the moving car.
During cross-examination from Trevor Burke QC, for Smith, Nicklin denied suggestions he had not read out the original statement on the phone to the driver before creating a PDF [digital document]. He agreed there could be some confusion over handwritten notes he took during his conversation with Smith, which occurred more than a year after the singer’s arrest, and what appeared in the statement.
The case continues.
