The Sun reporter Mazher Mahmood, known as the fake sheikh, has avoided a long-awaited public appearance after his first day in court was delayed on health grounds.
Officials at Westminster magistrates court said on Friday an application had been made to postpone Mahmood’s attendance until 20 November. They would not say whether the application was made by the defence or the prosecution.
It would have been one of the first times Mahmood appeared in public under his own identity. As an undercover reporter for the Sun, who conducted investigations often disguised as a Middle Eastern tycoon, his identity had remained a closely guarded secret.
He had been due to appear alongside Alan Smith, his driver, accused of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the case of the singer Tulisa Contostavlos, the subject of one of Mahmood’s tabloid stings.
The charges followed a police investigation launched after the collapse of a trial in July 2014 involving Contostavlos. She had been charged after an article by Mahmood in the Sun on Sunday in June 2013 alleged she had helped to obtain cocaine at his request.
The case against her collapsed after it emerged that a key witness changed his statement after discussing the case with Mahmood. The Metropolitan police passed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service last June after an investigation into Mahmood’s actions during the trial. He has been suspended by the Sun but is still an employee.
