IS THIS distinctive leg tattoo the evidence that will bring down Salim Mehajer?

Two years ago, Mr Mehajer denied he was the owner of a leg in Instagram photographs released by trendy Bondi Ink featuring tattoos of the name “Aysha”, initials “SM” and an image of a woman closely resembling his now former wife.

Last week, NSW police applied for permission in Burwood Local Court to take a photograph of Mr Mehajer’s legs, to compare with CCTV footage of a man with a prominent leg tattoo.

Police investigating the car crash allegedly faked and staged by Mr Mehajer last October, are in possession of CCTV vision of a man attending a meeting three days after the crash.

Police allege Mr Mehajer has the tattoo, and that $1250 was given as payment for the collision during the meeting.

Seven people have been charged over the crash which police allege was staged to defraud an insurance company and for Mr Mehajer to avoid a court appearance.

Mr Mehajer and all his conspirators have denied the charges against them.

Mehajer, who had to be cut out of his car and taken to hospital in a neck brace, had been driving to face court on charges of assaulting a taxi driver with an EFTPOS machine.

He has since pleaded guilty to the assault at Star Casino last year.

A two hour court hearing has been set down for the police application to photograph the legs of Mr Mehajer to possibly match the man in the CCTV images.

In February 2016, the Daily Telegraph exclusively revealed that Bondi Ink photographs of a man’s legs depicted a portrait of Mr Mehajer’s then wife Aysha on the upper thigh and her name on the lower leg.

The leg, allegedly tattooed 18 months earlier, also featured the initials “SM’, the word “millionaire”, dollar signs, and a pistol similar to one in Mr Mehajer’s 2015 wedding video.

Also on the leg were skulls, a rose and a distinctive crown, very like the one used by his family company, Mehajer Bros, and which adorned the front door at his Lidcombe home.

At the time, Mr Mehajer denied the tattooed leg was his.

“You have the wrong ­person. Come visit me I’ll show you my legs,” he said.

A former Bondi Ink tattoo artist told The Daily Telegraph he created the Aysha Mehajer tattoo and that his client was Mr Mehajer.

“I did a fair amount of work on him,” he said. “He’s a pretty cool cat, he chooses his own designs and I blend them in.”

Rarely is Mr Mehajer seen outside in anything but trousers, and when he did appear while on bail last August in a pair of shorts, he masked his leg.

Mr Mehajer, who was visiting Las Vegas for the Conor McGregor v Floyd Mayweather fight, posed in a pair of shorts next to a sports car, but with a bag screening his right leg.

His left leg looked completely free of any tattoos.

At the time, Mr Mehajer was on strict bail conditions for alleged electoral roll infringements.

Since then, he has been in court for numerous different charges and was refused bail in January over the alleged car crash fraud.

Mr Mehajer, who has denied any involvement in the alleged scam, was charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to cheat and defraud Insurance Australia Group (also known as NRMA Insurance) over the allegedly faked crash.

Last Thursday, a Supreme Court judge granted Mr Mehajer bail on a $200,000 surety.

Last week, police also charged Mr Mehajer with his second pervert the course of justice arising from documents submitted during an earlier bail application on the first pervert the course of justice charge.

Mr Mehajer was also charged with alleged possession of 50 Alprazolam tablets — commonly known as Xanax, six grams of Alprazolam and 174 tablets of Endone and Targin containing 42.6 grams of oxycodone, also known as “hillbilly heroin”.

The drug charges relate to a police raid of his Lidcombe residence last November while investigating the allegedly faked crash.

Mr Mehajer also appeared in court last week over an AVO taken out by his former wife, now known as Aysha Learmonth.

Mr Mehajer’s lawyer told the court that his ex-wife was a “grandstanding drama queen”, while Ms Learmonth said she was too afraid to appear in the same courtroom as her former husband.

On Salim and Aysha’s wedding in August 2015, the Bondi Ink parlour posted on Instagram a photograph of the happy couple with the words: “Congratulations, what a lavish wedding”.

candace.sutton@news.com.au