I was the photojournalist assigned to work with Mazher Mahmood – the notorious ‘Fake Sheikh’ – for six years.
He was ‘the worm in the apple’ of the News of the World, spreading the rot that eventually toppled Britain’s biggest selling paper.
I’m no grass – and I’ve kept quiet about most of the disgraceful things that went on – but now I’m telling all.
I knew Mahmood’s methods intimately – his spoofing, his illegal tricks and the non-stop, industrial-scale skulduggery.
His trademark con was luring unwitting marks into elaborate traps, before fitting them up for phony crimes.
I also know about the stories he that just made-up out of thin air, as well as his illegal money-making schemes which included defrauding Murdoch’s companies through lies and deceit.
His girlfriend of many years was a prostitute. I tracked her down, and she told me about the man behind the disguise.
I’m old enough to remember old school Fleet Street.
I worked for many newspapers on good stories, funny capers and dangerous investigations – all genuine – before I experienced, first hand and to my great cost, the corrupt ethos of Murdoch’s most vicious tabloid.
For 20 years, I worked to bring Mahmood to justice, until finally he got jailed.
Read all about it here – only on Yellow Press.