In a comment piece earlier this week I noted that former News of the World editor Andy Coulson once boasted to Press Gazette that a Mazher Mahmood sting had saved the life of a child who was offered for sale.

It has been suggested to me that this story is not all that it seemed and deserves further explanation (not least because Coulson has since served time for phone-hacking). And also that I was unduly sympathetic to Mahmood, given his conviction for dishonesty this week and the other questions that have been raised about his methods.

The story from 2005 was about a Plymouth 18-year-old who offered to sell her two-year-old daughter to the undercover reporter for £15,000. It recounted a meeting between the woman and her boyfriend in which the child was offered for sale with no apparent concern about what would happen to the little girl.