Remember Sam Allardyce’s mournful lament: “Entrapment won.” But entrapment can also lose, very heavily: and there’s no sign that Mazher Mahmood will be joining Big Sam on Spanish holiday any time soon.
Mahmood’s fall from grace – convicted of perverting the course of justice in a drugs sting – is nil surprise. Nor is the queue of lawyers, including chums from phone-hacking days, waiting in line with old Mazher victims for their chance of civil court retribution. Mahmood, as even a complaisant police force now realises, didn’t always investigate crime or grotesque behaviour so much as contrive the circumstances in which A- and B-list celebrities might be tempted to pass some drugs parcel or deliver headline-worthy indiscretions.
A scandal? Of course. And one that extends far beyond excited tabloid front pages and credulous coppers into the slack world of prosecution case-building too. Now, entirely predictably, there are cries that something must be done (as though the prospective mountain of damages now looming over Wapping wasn’t a most chilling “something” already).
But the problem, alas, is that not all Mahmoud’s yarns were worthless tat. Think cricket match-fixing for one. Stings have a place in the history of newspaper investigation that can’t be gainsaid – and shouldn’t be regulated out of existence. The best first response probably fits with the (already implemented) practice of reporters logging all episodes, tapes and conversation as enquiries proceed. That way their editors know what’s happening, their regulators can call for all the evidence gathered – and the police might wake up and start thinking for themselves.
