This interview is part of a series, which asks if newspapers have become Above the Law.

Read & watch further expert views & testimony from the campaign’s homepage.

By Alice Watkins

Emma Morgan, a model and actress, was at the beginning of what was set to be a promising career when she first met Mazher Mahmood. He claimed to be a prince who wanted to hire her for a bikini calendar shoot. 

Her story is just one of many accounts of how Mazher Mahmood, or the “fake sheikh”, relied on dubious and unethical techniques to capture his targets in compromising situations – coverage of which were then splashed across Murdoch’s News of the World. 

Emma described the promises Mahmood made when they first met:

“I was promised amazing things, that I could only ever dream about. Huge sums of money, being flown around in helicopters, red carpet events, being dressed in Chanel, everything that a young girl would want.” 

Emma was flown to Lanzarote to meet Mazher Mahmood. Here, he spoke about a launch party that he wanted her to attend, with the offer to help launch his magazine – the first of its kind in one of the United Emirates countries. 

Emma said that during this conversation he made very clear that he enjoyed girls who would party.

She explained,

“He made it known that he thought people who didn’t do drugs or people who weren’t sexually aware would be kind of boring and he wouldn’t want those sorts of people at the party”.

Emma said she was offered cocaine by a bodyguard who, she was told, was an employee of Mahmood, and was encouraged to consume it.

“It was certainly something that I wouldn’t have chosen to do, had that pressure not been there,” said Emma. 

Emma says Mahmood then took her aside privately and asked her to procure some cocaine for him. Emma even pointed out to him that his bodyguard, a “drug dealer who was employed by him, was sitting ten feet away”. 

But Mahmood’s response was that he did not trust the bodyguard, but that he did trust her.

“He didn’t make it sound like I was drug dealing. I didn’t feel like I was breaking the law. He made it sound as though I was doing him a favour. When somebody just offers you the world and then asks you to do them a little favour, you feel beholden to do that… And don’t forget [I was under the impression] he’s royalty.”

When the story broke, coverage suggested Emma Morgan was a “mob connected drug smuggler” – which of course was untrue. Emma wanted to fight against the inaccurate reports but didn’t have the means to do so, which is often the case for press abuse victims. As a result of the article, Emma Morgan lost her job and was evicted from her home.

“I went back home to my parents in Manchester. I didn’t leave my bedroom for nearly four months. I went from being a really happy girl on this great path to success, I do believe, to walking into job centres and being on antidepressants.” 

It took years for Emma Morgan to find work again, but in her later years she went on to win awards in acting and has been nominated for many more.  She reflects, “who knows what kind of career I could have had.”

Dr Evan Harris, campaigner former Hacked Off Director

We also spoke to Evan Harris, who helps victims of press illegality to get justice and has spent the last year studying Mahmood’s bylines – speaking to people who had either been a victim, or worked with him. 

Evan says that from his research alone and without looking at anything that’s coming from the litigation, you can see that Mahmood’s methods were very similar in many of the cases and ‘they were always corrupt’.

“One of Mahmood’s techniques was to engage in surreptitious filming – which can only be carried out when there is valid reason to do so – and this reason is established in advance.” 

But this was never the case, “it was a fishing expedition in almost every case to try and entrap people. That’s not what the readers of the News of the World were told or in his other papers. So it was dishonest,” Evan explained. 

The majority of the people that Mazher Mahmood targeted were not wealthy or powerful. Of course, we already know that his victims included politicians, pop stars, sports personalities and royalty. But Mahmood also took advantage of the fact that many people did not have access to the necessary resources to pursue legal action against the News of the World. This included people right at the start of their careers.

He also put pressure on the police to pursue convictions based on his stories, which may have shielded him from the risk of prosecution.

Evan said,

“Stories written by Mahmood, the fake sheikh are the worst kind of journalism, terrible in terms of their honesty and their legitimacy and devastating in the effect that it had on innocent people.

“He never punched up, always down. Often to people who he accused of working in the sex industry or people he accused of dealing drugs who may well have been drug users, may well have been addicts, people with mental health problems, immigrants and asylum seekers.” 

Some people who were targeted by Mahmood were convicted and imprisoned; “I can’t find very many people at all of the numbers who went to prison who deserved to go to prison. These were miscarriages of justice based on fraudulent techniques.” 

Editors at the newspapers Mahmood worked at were, or should have been, aware of the nature of the evidence being presented as the basis for publication and grounds for prosecution.

Their failure to speak up has never been investigated. 

For many of Mahmood’s victims who were convicted and had unsuccessful appeals, the Criminal Cases Review Commission is their only chance of recourse. Many of these victims are now bringing hacking claims. 

Evan explained that, “If they get admissions or settlements or information to them disclosed in the litigation, under the rules of the litigation that they are then able to use with permission of the court in their appeal, that they will be able to go to the CCRC, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, and get justice.”

Tell your MP that newspapers shouldn’t be above the law.