🔗 Share this article

A private investigator central to the court case brought by the Duke of Sussex and several claimants against the publisher of the Daily Mail has claimed his signature on an previous testimonial document was a “counterfeit”, the high court has been told.

Gavin Burrows, associated with the most serious allegations of unlawful data collection made by seven high-profile figures including Elton John and Doreen Lawrence, retracted his purported admission, saying it was “completely false”.

Context of the Purported Confession

The private eye had supposedly asserted in a 2021 witness statement that he and his team gathered intel by breaching voicemails, intercepting home telephones and bugging vehicles. He also allegedly claimed he had operated on behalf of the Sunday publication.

The media company is charged by the claimants of carrying out or hiring for illicit operations such as hiring inquiry agents to install listening devices inside vehicles, “blagging” personal files and gaining entry to private phone conversations. The defendant rejects the claims and is contesting the case.

Retraction and New Claims

Five of the plaintiffs have told the court they initiated the legal action targeting the publisher based on evidence apparently gathered by the investigator.

The witness had before disavowed his alleged statement in 2023. In a fresh detailed witness statement made on a recent date, and released by the high court on this week, he reiterated his disavowal, declaring he had never carried out any unlawful act on behalf of the company.

In the new statement, he claimed he did “fail to acknowledge” the “purported testimonial on 16 August 2021”. He stated he was of the opinion it was “created by third parties”, that the “signature is not mine”, and did “not accept the truthfulness of much of the material”.

The investigator said: “I am unfamiliar with the prior testimony of 16 August 2021 and I think that my signature on that paper is a forgery. A lot of it is not phrased in my usual wording. Additionally, the contents of the testimony are largely untrue.”

He added that he had “never” done work for the Sunday paper or the Daily Mail, apart from one assignment involving the business magnate that was free from any illegal activity”.

Circumstances of the Original Testimony

Burrows said he was on heavy painkillers after a significant physical assault, and consuming excessive alcohol, when he was contacted by a former journalist, a informant found guilty of phone hacking, who desired assistance with research on phone-hacking claims targeting media outlets.

He was connected to a contact, Dan Waddell, who was described as a legal assistant and was paid £600 a session for counsel.

His statement claimed he was told lawsuits against publications were expected to be resolved privately, as the papers did not want the publicity or cost of a trial, and were described to him as a “ideal scheme” and a “lucrative opportunity”.

The investigator, who said he had stopped working for publications in that year, stated he had told the former journalist repeatedly that the company were not one of my customers”.

Present Court Status

Burrows was originally a witness for the claimants, which also includes Elizabeth Hurley and others, but is now the subject of debates about the possibility that he will be summoned as a testifier for the trial.

Antony White KC, for the defendant, requested the judge to permit him to interrogate Burrows, while another barrister, for the claimants, made an petition to treat his testimony as secondhand information.

The presiding officer allowed Sherborne one week to decide if he wanted to request a witness summons to call Burrows, and informed him if Burrows gave testimony that was inconsistent with the information they had acquired, then he could apply to treat him as “adverse”.

A further preliminary proceeding in the legal action is anticipated to occur before the year’s conclusion.