Former London’s Burning actor John Alford has been handed a community order after resisting arrest while yelling that police officers were in “cahoots” with jailed News of the World “Fake Sheikh” Mazher Mahmood.
The 47-year-old rose to fame on Grange Hill but his career was left in tatters when he was convicted of supplying cocaine to now-discredited journalist Mahmood.
Alford developed a “siege mentality” because of the case and struggled with officers who tried to arrest him after he smashed a refuse lorry’s windscreen with a bin, Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court heard on Tuesday.
Alford, of Holloway, north London, was ordered to serve a 12-month community order after he admitted two counts of resisting an officer.
The court heard he drunkenly shattered the windscreen after taking a seat at the vehicle’s wheel at about 7.15am on September 1 in York Way, not far from the ex-actor’s home.
Officers were called and Pc Darren Baker and Pc Miranda Narcin attempted to arrest him but he resisted.
The judge was played one officer’s bodycam footage that showed the struggle with Alford, who claimed he was trying to stop the lorry rolling backwards.
Police strapped his legs together and he was heard shouting that he was “fighting corrupt police officers”.
“In cahoots with News of the World,” he shouted. “In cahoots with Mazher Mahmood.”
The court also heard him yell: “Did Rupert Murdoch (former News of the World proprietor) send you here to kill me?”
In mitigation for Alford, Geoff Payne said the “significant entrapment” at the hands of Mahmood created a “siege mentality” for his client, giving him a problem with authority.
“It’s something that unfortunately he’s never managed to put behind him, never managed to come to terms with,” Mr Payne added.
Judge Gillian Allison ordered Alford to complete a 25-day rehabilitative activity, pay £400 compensation and serve a 14-day curfew on an electronic tag between 8pm and 6am.
But she agreed that the curfew could begin a day later than she initially intended so Alford could take his two children to an Arsenal match as a “Christmas treat”.
Alford previously admitted criminal damage with regard to the windscreen, with a repair bill estimated at £300.
His career was largely destroyed when he was jailed for nine months in 1999 after being convicted of supplying cocaine to Mahmood, the News of the World’s “King of the Sting”.
Mahmood was jailed for 15 months in 2016 for tampering with evidence in the collapsed drugs trial of pop star Tulisa Contostavlos.
Alford’s drugs case was referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, but a spokesman for the commission said the matter was closed in December without being recommended for an appeal.