An American financier who once dated Prince Andrew’s former wife, Sarah Ferguson, is among a group of 20 people planning to sue the Sun on Sunday publisher after the conviction of “Fake Sheikh” journalist Mazher Mahmood for plotting to pervert the course of justice.

Papers denouncing the “vile conduct” of Mahmood have already been filed in Los Angeles against News UK’s parent company, News Corp, claiming damages of $150m (£118m), according to John Bryan’s London lawyer.

Mark Lewis is also acting for 19 other people in claims that could total £800m. Among the others planning to sue are Page 3 model Emma Morgan and John Alford, a former star of ITV’s London’s Burning.

Alford has said in the past that his life was destroyed by Mahmood, who promised him a role in a Robert De Niro movie in exchange for drugs. The actor lost his £120,000-a-year job as a result and was jailed for nine months in 1999.

Bryan’s case has been mounted in relation to a sting in which Mahmood’s undercover team offered the American an investment opportunity in a casino and then allegedly tried to entrap him “asking him to supply prostitutes and drugs”.

According to the Los Angeles papers, Bryan is suing News Corp for libel, invasion of privacy and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. “The vile conduct giving rise to this lawsuit includes a failed entrapment scheme, unlawful recordings and a malicious libel,” says the 13-page document.



Writs are planned shortly in the high court in London in relation to the other alleged victims of Mahmood who were targeted either during his long career as the News of the World’s undercover star or his latest reporting stint at its successor, the Sun on Sunday.

Lewis said: “We were waiting for the outcome of the case. We would have filed claims anyway but the verdict just makes what we want to say simpler.” He added that they will be suing for a multitude of alleged wrongs expected to include libel, reputation damage and loss of earnings.

He is also examining a claim for vicarious “malicious prosecution” against News UK, which has already faced Lewis in the high court in relation to dozens of claims by celebrities and public figures whose phones were hacked by an investigator on contract at the News of the World.

A malicious prosecution claim would centre on accusations that, as Mahmood’s employer, News UK facilitated the alleged entrapment and subsequent prosecution.

Wednesday’s conviction also raises the prospect of the police re-examining some of the cases that resulted from Mahmood’s undercover operations.

Mahmood was a star journalist on the Sun on Sunday’s predecessor and boasted in the final edition of the News of the World that his work had “nailed scores of paedophiles, arms dealers, drug peddlers, people traffickers, bent doctors and lawyers” over his 20 years on the paper.

His investigation methods have now resulted in a criminal conviction for himself. Technically the conviction, which is a common law offence, could result in a life sentence but in practice it is likely to run to months or a small number of years.

Mahmood’s investigation methods have long been controversial but became the subject of criminal proceedings after the collapse of a drugs trial involving the singer Tulisa Contostavlos in July 2014.

She had been charged in relation to allegations that she had tried to arrange for a contact of hers to supply £800 worth of cocaine to Mahmood, who had posed as a movie talent scout promising a new career on the big screen.

The trial collapsed after it emerged that Mahmood had tampered with evidence being used against her.

After a two-week trial at the Old Bailey, a jury found the 53-year-old and his driver, Alan Smith, 67, guilty of plotting to pervert the course of justice.

When the case collapsed, the former N-Dubz star branded Mahmood’s investigation “horrific and disgusting”, saying that she was “never involved in taking or dealing cocaine” and had been entrapped by Mahmood, who had offered her a leading movie role alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.

“They targeted me at a time when things were going badly for me and they had no mercy,” she said last year after the Sun on Sunday claimed she had agreed to arrange the supply of cocaine because she thought it would help her land a role in a Bollywood blockbuster.

“Mahmood got me and my team completely intoxicated and persuaded me to act the part of a bad rough ghetto girl. They recorded this and produced it as evidence when I thought it was an audition. It was a terrible thing to do. “

After the verdicts, Ben Rose, Contostavlos’s defence lawyer, said: “The real scandal in this case is that Mahmood was allowed to operate as a wholly unregulated police force, ‘investigating’ crimes without the safeguards which apply to the police.

“It was obvious from the outset that Tulisa should never have had to go to court. If Mahmood’s evidence had been properly stress-tested instead of accepted wholesale by the CPS, we are confident it would have come to the same conclusion.”