Two Gavin Burrows signatures. Top is from a disputed 2021 statement. Bottom is from a 2025 witness statement. Picture: Press Gazette
A private investigator has told the High Court that the signature on a witness statement allegedly given by him, which features extensive admissions of phone-hacking for the Mail on Sunday, was faked.
The signature on the 2021 statement allegedly given to Prince Harry’s legal team looks nothing like the signature Burrows gave in 2025 in a fresh statement made in support of Associated Newspapers’ defence (see picture above).
Seven people, including the Duke of Sussex, Sir Elton John and actress Sadie Frost, are suing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over claims of unlawful information gathering, which the publisher denies.
The 2021 Burrows statement appears to have been a key reason for claimants taking the decision to sue ANL.
It quotes Burrows as saying he was commissioned by Mail on Sunday investigations editor Paul Henderson hundreds of times between 2000 and 2005.
The statement says: “I did Hugh Grant’s voicemails, and landline tapped and bugged him constantly for Hendo…
“I did a lot on Liz Hurley for Hendo. Lots of landline taps on her home phone and voicemail hacking. Also lots of financial checks, travel blagging and medicals when she was having her baby.
“On Liz I remember Hendo ringing me up to put a window mic on her home window in London…
“I hard-wired tapped Elton and David’s place in Windsor as well especially the landlines of their people on the grounds (like the gardener) or at their own homes…
“I remember putting hardwire taps on and voicemail hacking his friend Guy Pelly and doing loads on Chelsy Davy when he was with her….
“I also did a lot of work on Sadie Frost – landline taps, voicemail hacks, travel and credit card checks on her, Jude Law and their celeb pals….
“I targeted hundreds, possibly thousands of people during my time working for Hendo at the Mail on Sunday. There pretty much wasn’t a week that went by during that time when I didn’t have a hardwire tap on somebody, on instruction from Hendo.”
Henderson told the court last month that the disputed 2021 statement was a “litany of lies” and that it was “absolutely incorrect” that he had commissioned Burrows to carry out unlawful activities.
Private investigator Gavin Burrows. Picture: Screenshot from BBC’s The Princes and the Press
Burrows takes the stand: ‘There is nothing in that statement that is true’
Burrows gave evidence voluntarily via a video link from an undisclosed location abroad on Monday, telling the court that he was there “working for British interests” and that “by no means am I avoiding anything. I am here to help”.
Discussing the 2021 statement, he said: “I did not write the statement, I don’t recognise anything in the statement.
“You can tell that that is not even a proper signature. I can tell that it was faked and traced.”
“I only read about my statement a year-and-a-half later in the newspaper,” he added, later telling the court: “There has been this whole kind of theatre built around me that I can easily prove wrong.”
Burrows denied ever being involved in hacking (phones or computers).
He said he met Henderson on one occasion, in Mallorca, when he introduced the journalist to the manager of Richard Branson’s hotel La Residencia as a favour to a client, to help with a Mail on Sunday investigation into the Virgin boss.
He added: “Of course I had a phone number for him. Knowing me, I probably did try and drum up some work, but he really wasn’t interested. But a very nice courteous bloke, very good, you know. But no, I’ve never worked for ANL, I’ve never received any payments from ANL.”
He said Henderson later introduced Burrows to the then news editor of the Mail on Sunday, but that no work resulted from it.
He reiterated: “I haven’t done any work for Paul Henderson or ANL or any other magazine that Paul Henderson’s worked for.”
‘I’ve never done celebrity work’
Asked in court about a Mail article alleging Liz Hurley was “desperate to have another baby” but only if her then boyfriend married her first, he said: “I’ve never done celebrity work, apart from the one occasion that I did apologise for”.
Burrows said he did make enquiries on behalf of the News of the World on one occasion to discover the identity of Prince Harry’s then alleged drug dealer at a nightclub.
Claimants’ solicitor David Sherborne said: “What, if anything, did you tell the claimants’ solicitors or a trusted representative about this article previously?”
Burrows: “Well, I think we can all be in agreement. I don’t think you’ve really got a trusted representative, have you?”
Sherborne: “Who are you referring to, Mr Burrows?”
Burrows: “Graham Johnson.”
Sherborne: “Why do you say that?”
Burrows: “Because I’ve taken him to court and won, because he’s a proven conman, he’s got multiple criminal convictions in court, including pouring boiling hot water over someone’s head and scarring them for life.
“He’s a thoroughly not nice person. I thought he was okay, and I wasn’t bitter or angry with him, I just walked off the job with Hacked Off, I just walked off and said, ‘I don’t want to be part of this any more’.
“They’re without doubt paying witnesses. I don’t want any part of this. This is going to go wrong, and it is about to go wrong. And I said: ‘This is going to go very, very wrong for you guys. Bye.’”
Burrows said he complained to the Solicitors Regulation Authority about the actions of the legal research team, and said he was told: “The reason you use people like your legal back-up team, like Graham Johnson and Dan Waddell, because they’re unqualified, can’t be regulated, and there’s nobody to complain to, and that’s the reason you use them for your research.”
‘You’ve planted so much rubbish about me in the press’
Returning to the subject of purported 2021 Burrows statement, in which he made extensive of admissions of illegal newsgathering for the Mail on Sunday, he said: “The statement − there’s nothing in that statement that is true, because I didn’t write that statement. Look, linguistically it ‘s been proven I didn’t write it, okay?
“Forensically, your people have deliberately not gone through it. Go through it. It’s proven. Forget about this statement. It’s blown. You do the analysis of my signature. It’s blown.
“You compare my true statements with how Graham Johnson writes, you’re blown. It’s blown.
“This statement has nothing to do with me…
“I ‘m here voluntarily, but the only reason I’m here is you’ve planted so much rubbish about me in the press, because of catching out your conman who works for you, your well−documented conman who works for you, who then gives you false information, gives the claimants false information to make claims.”
In a written statement in September 2025 , Burrows said he “did not recognise” the 2021 statement and that its contents were “substantially untrue”, adding that its signature was forged and that he believed it was “prepared by others without my knowledge”.
He continued: “I never carried out any work for the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail between 2000 and 2005 or at any other stage, save for one informal job relating to Richard Branson in 2000, which did not involve any illegal activity.”
Burrows told the High Court that he thought the claimants had “been seriously misled” during the proceedings, adding that Baroness Doreen Lawrence “had been conned”.
Barrister David Sherborne, acting for the claimants, previously said in written submissions that it was “impossible” for the signature on the 2021 statement to have been forged, and that the allegation was “wild and unsubstantiated”.
He continued that the statement was Burrows’ “true evidence”, and that it contained “consistent, detailed, candid statements which it is submitted are plainly in Mr Burrows’ own words”.
The trial before Mr Justice Nicklin is due to conclude this month.
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