A MAN who was jailed following a sting by an undercover News of the World journalist has claimed that he was drugged by the infamous reporter to entrap him in a forgery scandal, Politicalite can exclusively reveal.
Alex Smith, known as Jonathan Royle, was sentenced to six months in prison in 1999 after an investigation by undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood – known as the Fake Sheik and was once legendary dubbed by the UK media class the “King of the Sting” winning Reporter of the Year in 2011, as well as Scoop of the Year despite fake stories surrounding N-Dubz star Tulisa.
Mahmood – who is currently at the centre of an absolutely juicy MUST SEE TV Amazon Prime documentary was jailed in 2016 for tampering with evidence in the collapsed drug trial of N-Dubz and former X-Factor singer Tulisa Contostavlos.
Alex claims that he was “entrapped” by Mahmood and his team who he claims “were always one step ahead of me and applying pressure and intimidation behind the scenes as and when they felt it was needed.”
Speaking exclusively to Politicalite ahead of the premiere of the highly anticipated and controversial Amazon Prime documentary on one of Rupert Murdochs former star reporters – days after the News Corporation media titan stepped down from the company, Alex claims their associates and his publicist at the time also aided in this behind the scenes manipulation and in truth seeded the idea to try and expose the Fake Sheikh’s techniques into my mind in the first place.
He claims that Mahmood not only knew that I knew who he was, but that further he was ultimately the Architect and Engineer of the whole series of events such as the Posh fake kidnap.
“The only reason the Fake Coins were ever delivered to Mahmood by me is that he provided the money to get them in advance, his team member and another associate informed me where to obtain the coins and they used veiled threats to manipulate me into getting them.”
“Plus of course as I knew who he was, I knew that the coins would never enter circulation and would instead ultimately have to be handed to the Police and I would fully co-operate with the Police (as I did) in a quest to bring some real criminals to justice at the same time.”
Alex also alleges that the Fake Sheik “plied him with alcoholic drinks” paid for by News UK and also alleges that he was “drugged” with a “date rape” drug called GHB substance poured into his Alcohol.
“They plied me with drinks and a Drug affected me.”
“They drugged my drinks, head & most certainly along with the behind the scenes veiled threats ultimately pushed me into doing what I never intended and really never wanted to do.”
He claims that he was “forced” into doing something that was actually breaking the law, something he says he “could not have done anyway unless they supplied the money upfront and they also supplied the information of where to actually obtain the coins and who to look for.”
“I had only ever intended to ring a Local Massage Parlor and arrange for some Girls to come and visit Perry Khan (Mahmood) when I was not there (something that was not and is not illegal) which I thought would be enough of a story for him (he had done stories in the past to other people doing same) for an article to appear and for me to then produce my recordings and evidence that would show he had distorted & lied in his story as he often did which would of given me a great story to sell to a rival newspaper.
ALEX IN FIGHT TO CLEAR HIS NAME
SINCE he was released, Alex has been campaigning to clear his name and in September 2022 he filed Civil Proceedings
for Invasion of Privacy and Unlawful information gathering against Rupert Murdochs NewsGroup Newspapers in relation to Mazher Mahmood’s activities towards him in 1998.
He has also made some specific particulars
of claim to make the assertion that The Fake Sheikh Mazher Mahmood & his team spiked his drinks.
“They edited tapes to give a distorted untrue view of events whilst also as has come
to light in the past couple of years that he used unlawful information gathering techniques including phone hacking to always be several steps ahead of me in my attempt to expose his dishonesty in 1998 which backfired.”
“Ultimately in my case, had Mahmood not provided the money to go and collect the allegedly counterfeit coins from the source where one of his associates had told me they could be obtained then it would never have occurred and it did only occur because I was manipulated & threatened behind the scenes.”
“As well as my drinks being I believe drugged and in the heat of the moment me thinking oh well it won’t matter anyway as the coins will never get into public circulation and will have to be given to the Police by Mahmood who I knew the identity of from the start as I had anonymously tipped him off about me in a quest to expose his dishonest techniques. “
“Little did I know in 1998 that he did not just lie and manipulate evidence routinely but that he also used Phone Hacking & other unlawful information techniques to always stay several steps ahead of the game”
The Sun declined to comment after being approached by Politicalite.
More follows on Monday.
