Fake Sheikh Mazher Mahmood facing court charges

The undercover reporter known as the Fake Sheikh is due to appear in court charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Mazher Mahmood, 52, is alleged to have misled the court during the collapsed drugs trial of pop star Tulisa Contostavlos.

The former News of the World journalist will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court, where he is charged alongside Alan Smith, 66, a retired driver from Norfolk, who is accused of the same offence.

The case was due to be heard last month but was adjourned on "health grounds", a court official said.

Former N-Dubz star Ms Contostavlos, 27, went on trial last year after allegedly brokering a cocaine deal which featured in an expose in The Sun On Sunday following an investigation by Mahmood.

She denied a charge of being concerned with the supply of class A drugs before a judge threw out the case at Southwark Crown Court in July last year.

Ms Contostavlos's rapper friend Mike GLC was also cleared, despite admitting supplying half an ounce (13.9g) of the drug.

Mahmood spent 25 years as an undercover reporter and claimed to have helped put more than 100 criminals behind bars.

News UK, which publishes The Sun, has said that Mahmood remains suspended from the newspaper.