As a solicitor contacted by a friend of one of the men arrested in connection with the alleged plot in 2002 to kidnap Victoria Beckham, and asked to represent him, I recall when I attended Charing Cross police station where the suspects were being held following their arrest, finding to my surprise that the police that day knew about as much about the case as I did, or possibly a little less, as I’d had the advantage of reading the story splashed across the News of the World that morning.
This, of course, was because the case had been “investigated” and prepared by Mazher Mahmood, and then handed to the police as a fait accompli (‘Fake Sheikh’ jailed for 15 months, 22 October). I found it astonishing then and still do that this so-called journalist was allowed for so long to set up and investigate alleged crimes with none of the safeguards, professional standards and regulation that the police are subject to, including the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act which provides rules that police must follow when filming and recording suspects, and also dealing with informants.
The ultimate failure of the Beckham prosecution and many others at huge cost to the public purse, but to the great profit of News International and its newspapers, is one of the many scandalous aspects to this saga.
I cannot comment on whether the police have been actively corrupt in their dealings with that organisation, but I do believe they were, like so many other organs of state have been and are, utterly supine in the face of its perceived power and influence.
Penny Muir
Solicitor, Lewis Nedas Law
• The front page of Friday’s Daily Mail vividly illustrates what Andy Beckett was saying in his long read (Revenge of the tabloids, 27 October). The headline “A sick joke! NHS moans about lack of funds… but fails to collect hundreds of millions from health tourists” neatly implies that the NHS is short of funds through its own lazy incompetence (thus denigrating an essential public service that is gradually being run down by government policy), inflates the actual shortfall (reported by the Telegraph as about £250m), and implies that every foreign national using the NHS has come to the UK to benefit from free care. No wonder opinions are moving to the right under this stream of distorted half-information.
Michael Miller
Sheffield
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