Smash hit

Valerie, then 25, felt an immediate attraction to the young Egyptian, and her feelings seemed to be reciprocated. He was a hunk, he paid her attention, and he made her laugh. She remembers his “nice, big hands”, his eyes and his coffee brown skin. As a single parent, down on her luck,Valerie was flattered that the exotic young foreigner was interested in her.

But the future Abu Hamza’s interest in Valerie seems to have been more than just a physical one. He was an illegal immigrant, having failed to renew his visa when it expired the previous September. Valerie’s pregnancy presented him with an opportunity. If he could marry her and persuade her to let him claim that he was the father of her child, his immigration status would be vastly improved.

He acted quickly. One night, not long after they first met, he came straight up to her and kissed her passionately. He was direct and physical, and she found him hard to resist. ‘He made the first move,’ she said. ‘I’m not the sort of person to do that kind of thing. It was there in the kitchen. I was surprised, I hadn’t long come out of a long relationship and was surprised with myself more than anything. Things moved pretty fast. We became very close very quickly. But he was also a romantic man, quite tender and softly spoken. We laughed a lot.’

The sex was good, but when Abu Hamza suggested they get married, Valerie turned him down. There were lots of women after the young night porter. Valerie did not trust Abu Hamza to stay faithful when there were so many other women who would not encumber him with a brood of young children. But he persisted with his marriage proposal, and before long she relented. They were married in Westminster Register Office on 16 May 1980.

Valerie has repeatedly insisted that the marriage was the result of a genuine love affair. But she can hardly have been unaware of Abu Hamza’s immigration status. Significantly, when they married she spelt her name on the register incorrectly, as “Traversa” and not “Traverso”. At the time she and her first husband were separated but not divorced. They did not divorce until July 1982, so her marriage to Abu Hamza was bigamous. Valerie has protested in interviews since that there was no intent on her or Abu Hamza’s part to marry illegally. It was a mix-up, a simple confusion. But within a few months a second false entry was being made on an official register.

On 26 September 1980, Valerie gave birth to the child with whom she had been pregnant when she met Abu Hamza. Within four days of the baby’s birth, Abu Hamza instructed lawyers to write to the Home Office stating that the young Egyptian immigrant had married an Englishwoman and become a father. He had been living in Britain illegally, but now that he had a wife and child here he wanted to “regularise” his stay. He wanted to remain in the country indefinitely.

Such a claim would have to be supported by documentary evidence, namely marriage and birth certificates. The wedding document the couple already had. On October 22, the birth of Valerie’s daughter was recorded at the office of the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Lambeth. The child’s name was entered as Nahed Donna Mostafa, and the name of her father was registered as Mostafa Kamel Mostafa. He gave his birthplace as Egypt and his occupation as “labourer”.

Abu Hamza signed the register “Mostafa”.

The name of the child’s mother was recorded as Valerie Olga Macias – using the surname of her first husband, to whom she was still legally married. She gave her maiden name as Traverso – spelling it correctly on this occasion. Beside Mostafa’s signature, the name “V. Macias” was signed.

The marriage of Abu Hamza and Valerie Traverso was not legal. It appears that the registration of Valerie’s daughter’s birth was also illegal. Valerie insists to this day that she was pregnant when she met Abu Hamza – she is “150 per cent on that”. If that is true, the birth certificate for the child, which states that he is the father, is a fraudulent document. Now registered as both a husband and a father under British law, Abu Hamza had a strong claim to be allowed to live legally in Britain — a claim based on a double deception.

The image of the family man was hard to maintain. Abu Hamza’s work as a Soho doorman took him to brothels and bed shows, and onto streets ripe with temptation.

The working girls were often grateful for the protection of their musclebound guardian. Abu Hamza began at least one affair. He has always been coy about this period of his life, bemoaning the men who came “to fantasise” at these places, but adding: “I was a very undisciplined Muslim.”

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