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It usually begins with a discreet phone call to the celebrity's agent.
Then comes the tantalising offer, followed by dinner at an exclusive
London hotel with an 'Arab prince', washed down by booze and - often
as not - drugs.

Even when the prince makes his excuses and leaves, the celebrity
rarely realises he's been 'Mazhered' until the News of the World
exposE9 appears. Mazher Mahmood, NoW's investigations editor, has
made a career out of humiliating celebrities. Usually they go quietly.
But last week, John Alford, the former London's Burning star caught
snorting cocaine in a hotel room provided by Mahmood, struck back in
an impassioned speech at Snaresbrook Crown Court. Defending himself
against charges of supplying cocaine and cannabis to NoW, he accused
Mahmood of 'subterfuge' and 'pressuring' him to commit an offence.

As a result, Mahmood is now in the dock and the Home Secretary faces
calls to examine his methods with a view to changing the law on
journalistic entrapment.

As Alford's friend, former world boxing champion Terry Marsh, put it
after Alford was found guilty, the hapless actor accepted he had
supplied cocaine but it was a crime 'incited by, and aided and abetted
by, journalists'. Was Mahmood the architect of Alford's destruction or
merely the catalyst? And, given similar inducements, would journalists
survive scrutiny?

For one who makes a living exposing other people's peccadilloes,
Mahmood is notoriously guarded about his private life. Little is known
about him beyond that he is the son of a magistrate, was raised in the
Midlands and is 'Maz' to his friends. His picture byline consists of a
silhouette and, when he was voted reporter of the year in March, NoW
ran his front-page exposE9 of Newcastle chairmen Freddie Shepherd and
Douglas Hall rather than his photograph in the UK Press Gazette.

Even those who work with him say the teetotal, non-smoking Mahmood is
a man of mystery. 'How old is he? I'm not sure,' says NoW editor Phil
Hall. 'All I can tell you is he has a minder with him at all times and
has had to move several times because of threats to his life.'

Mahmood's real talent is playing Arab princes. To trick Alford into
supplying cocaine and cannabis he posed as Sheikh Mohammed al-Kareem
and promised him UKP100,000 to appear at a nightclub launch in Dubai.
In the case of another alleged cocaine-snorting victim, Radio 2 DJ
Johnnie Walker, he was 'Prince Mohammed' from Dubai. And to con Hall
and Shepherd - caught on tape making derogatory remarks about
Newcastle's star player, Alan Shearer, and describing Tyneside women
as 'dogs' - Mahmood again posed as an Arab, this time flying the
directors for a booze-up in a hotel room in Marbella.

Such scams are hugely expensive. While most NoW hacks work within
strict budgetary limits, Mahmood's stings can cost up to UKP30,000 a
time - much of it paid in cash.

But the key to Mahmood's success is the prowess of his technical team
and the endless cast of characters at his disposal. Gerry Brown, a
former NoW reporter, and his son Conrad, are the 'sound and vision'
experts, hiding microphones and cameras in vases and picture frames in
hotel rooms. Freelance journalists and editorial assistants play the
parts of minor Arab royals, minders, chauffeurs and
prostitutes.

'You wouldn't believe the lengths they'll go to,' said one recent
victim. 'My first thought was, "This is a set-up, where's Noel
Edmonds?" But after several weeks of meetings and dinners your guard
begins to drop.'

In the case of Johnnie Walker, the deception involved a team of six
people. It began with a call to his agent from a company supposedly
representing a Dubai hotel group and was followed by a meeting at an
Italian restaurant in London's West End. Next, Mahmood commissioned
Walker to make a demo tape of his work, paying him UKP1,250. The sting
allegedly culminated in April with an eager-to-impress Walker being
'snort in the act', as NoW's story put it, at the Grosvenor House
Hotel in Park Lane. Like Alford he faces a humiliating court
appearance, and for an even more trifling offence - possession and
supply of 0.11 grams of cocaine.

According to another celebrity stung in a similar fashion: 'They say
things like, "Oh we love cocaine but it wasn't very good. Is there any
way you can help us out?" They are pressurising you the whole time -
but of course they never put that in the story.'

In Alford's case the actor was so taken in by Mahmood's performance
that on the videotape played in court he is seen bowing and scraping
to the fake sheikh. The next moment Alford is boasting about cocaine
and has accepted UKP300 from Mahmood to score drugs on his behalf from
a contact in north London.

'I was told the sheikh was a playboy and all I had to do was impress
him,' he told the jury. 'When you go to an interview you become the
person they want you to be.'

But many media commentators are uneasy about the expenditure of so
much money on such an insignificant target. 'It's using a sledgehammer
to crack a nut,' says Roy Greenslade, former editor of the Daily
Mirror. 'Is the person being exposed worthy of this sort of attention?'

Publicist Max Clifford says: 'If Alford is really a drugs dealer then
in my opinion he deserves everything he gets. But if he was enticed
into supplying drugs by having a huge carrot dangled in front of him
that's a different matter. A lot of people in this business take
cocaine. But they don't deal drugs, and nor would they wish to.'

Phil Hall is adamant that Alford had offered to supply drugs to people
in showbusiness circles before Mahmood's investigation. 'Our
information was that he had been pushing drugs on impressionable young
actors at parties. All we did is lure him into a situation where we
could videotape him and obtain the evidence.'

However, for all Mahmood's prowess as an investigator there are
questions about his journalistic ethics. In 1989, before joining the
NoW, he was sacked by the Sunday Times for trying to cover up a
factual inaccuracy in one of his stories. According to Greenslade, the
paper's then executive editor, instead of owning up to his mistake
Mahmood said the inaccuracy had been in copy filed by a freelance
reporter that he had taken into his story. When it seemed he might be
found out, Greenslade says Mahmood tried to persuade computer staff to
alter the freelance reporter's original copy.

Similar doubts have been raised about Mahmood's Newcastle directors'
expose. Hall and Shepherd claim the NoW had set out to prove they were
cocaine users. When that failed they suspect Mahmood, or else a member
of his team, 'spiked' their drinks in order to elicit their
indiscretions.

In court, Alford claimed Mahmood had wiped a vital tape recording so
as to 'put words' into his mouth.

Mahmood replied that his Dictaphone had malfunctioned and there was no
need to make up anything, as Alford's words and actions on videotape
could not have been more damning. But still Alford insisted he had
been unfairly entrapped.

'You are lying and I know you are lying. I can sleep at night, how can
you?' he asked.

Only NoW's reticent investigations editor can answer that. But a
former colleague says Mahmood is not known for pangs of conscience.
'He is the sort of journalist who would sell his own grandmother if he
thought there was a story in it.'

In tabloid circles, that's probably a compliment.