The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is re-examining 25 cases in which people were convicted largely on evidence supplied by the Sun on Sunday’s reporter, Mazher Mahmood.
It follows a judge’s decision to halt the trial of Tulisa Contostavlos in July because he said there were “strong grounds for believing Mr Mahmood told me lies” and “had been manipulating the evidence”.
Now the CPS has announced it “took steps” after the collapse of that trial “to identify current and past cases involving Mr Mahmood as a prosecution witness.”
Its spokesperson said: “We made it our immediate priority to carefully look into live prosecutions in accordance with the code for crown prosecutors and any past cases which involved a defendant still in custody.”
It identified three live cases and concluded that there was no longer a realistic prospect of a conviction, so the prosecutions were dropped. The next stage involved past cases that resulted in convictions “based on evidence provided by Mr Mahmood”.
Having identified 25 such cases, the CPS says it will be contacting representatives of the defendants, or the defendants themselves, “in order to provide them with a disclosure pack” so that they can supply details “they may consider undermines the conviction”.
The CPS spokesperson said: “When making a charging decision, each case and the evidence provided to us is assessed on its own merit and a decision is made in accordance with the code for crown prosecutors.
“If, after the conclusion of proceedings, new material comes to light that may cast doubt upon the safety of a conviction, we have a duty to consider disclosure.
“By providing disclosure packs to the defence, consideration can be given as to whether or not this material might cast doubt upon the safety of any convictions.”
The CPS will provide information to defence representatives in order to allow them “to consider whether there is any basis for their client’s case to be referred to the court of appeal or to the criminal case review commission (CCRC)”.
Disclosure packs have also been given to the Law Society, CCRC and relevant regulatory bodies “who have had cases involving Mr Mahmood”.
The CPS spokesperson said:
“The safety of convictions is of paramount importance to the CPS. Therefore if defence representatives have not been contacted by the end of December and provided with a disclosure pack then we would invite them to contact their local CPS office in order to provide their details and to request a pack.
Care should be taken when reporting matters relating to Mr Mahmood to ensure it does not affect the fairness of future proceedings as a police investigation in remains ongoing.”
Two weeks ago, John Whittingdale, the chairman of the commons culture and media select committee, backed a call for a new inquiry into the activities of Mahmood, who is known as the fake sheikh.
He said, following the screening of a Panorama programme about Mahmood, that there were grounds to consider the relationship between the reporter and the Metropolitan police.
Whittingdale said: “Panorama increases the strength of the case considerably for a new inquiry … There is a severe question mark over over the tactics he [Mahmood] used … We are dealing with convictions which may not have been properly obtained.”
He was responding to a call for an investigation into Mahmood’s string of stories by lawyer Siobhain Egan, who represented one of the men charged with the kidnap of Victoria Beckham in 2003.
A spokesperson for the Sun said: “We are aware of the CPS statement. Mr Mahmood remains suspended and we are continuing our internal investigation into the matter.”
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