the newspaper.She said: “Mahmood has now been exposed by my lawyers of openly lying to the judge and jury. These lies were told to stop crucial evidence going before the jury. … Thankfully, the lies have been uncovered and justice has been done.” Contostavlos insisted throughout that she had been entrapped and only pretended an interest in drugs to play up to a “bad girl” image seemingly sought by the producers.
The “lie” by Mahmood dates back to a pre-trial hearing in which he denied having seen a police statement made by his driver, Alan Smith, about a conversation Smith had with Contostavlos while dropping her home in which she expressed disapproval of drugs. But under cross-examination Mahmood conceded he had received an emailed copy of the statement.
Jeremy Dein QC, for the defence, asked if he had “put influence” on Smith to change the statement. The reporter denied this, but later conceded he had discussed his worries about the statement with Smith.
The judge intervened to say this appeared to show Mahmood had lied to manipulate the evidence and that he was considering whether to order a trial, allow bad character evidence against Mahmood, or drop the case entirely.
Mahmood, he added, was the “sole progenitor” of the case and had gone to “considerable” lengths to get Contostavlos involved in crime, certainly more than police would have done.The judge did not mention whether Mahmood could face a perjury trial, but this is now a possibility because the judge has accused him of telling ‘a knowing lie’.
A front-page News of the World story, in 2002, saw Mahmood claim to have exposed a plot to kidnap former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and hold her ransom for £5million.Five men were arrested but later cleared when the prosecution case collapsed after it was revealed the source for the story had been paid £10,000 for the story despite having criminal convictions to his name, and was therefore deemed an unreliable witness.Tulisa Contostavlos called on the Metropolitan Police to investigate Mazhar Mahmood after being cleared of arranging a drug deal. She said he had been “exposed lying to the judge and the jury”.