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A PI at the heart of the court case initiated by Prince Harry and several claimants targeting the publishing group of the Daily Mail has asserted his autograph on an prior testimonial document was a “forgery”, the high court has been told.

The investigator, connected to the gravest allegations of illegal data collection made by seven prominent individuals including Elton John and the activist, withdrew his purported confession, declaring it was “entirely untrue”.

Background of the Purported Confession

The private eye had reportedly asserted in a testimonial from 2021 that he and his associates gathered data by breaching voicemails, intercepting landline phones and bugging vehicles. He also reportedly said he had worked on behalf of the Mail on Sunday.

The media company is alleged by the claimants of conducting or commissioning illegal acts such as hiring inquiry agents to place bugs inside vehicles, manipulating access to personal files and intercepting confidential calls. The defendant denies the accusations and is defending the case.

Retraction and New Allegations

Several of the individuals have told the court they initiated the legal action targeting the media group based on information allegedly obtained by Burrows.

Burrows had earlier retracted his supposed testimony in last year. In a new detailed testimonial document made on 25 September 2025, and released by the court on Tuesday, he restated his denial, stating he had never performed any illegal activity on behalf of the company.

In the recent testimony, he claimed he did “not identify” the alleged testimonial on 16 August 2021”. He said he was of the opinion it was “drafted by someone else”, that the “signature is not mine”, and did “not accept the veracity of much of the material”.

Burrows declared: “I do not recognise the prior witness statement of that date and I am convinced that my signature on that statement is a fabrication. A great deal of it is not written in my style of speaking. Further, the contents of the testimony are mostly false.”

He stated further that he had “at no time” performed work for the Sunday paper or the daily tabloid, except for one task involving the business magnate that excluded any illicit behavior”.

Circumstances of the Original Statement

Burrows claimed he was on powerful analgesics after a significant beating, and engaging in heavy drinking, when he was reached out to by a former journalist, a whistleblower convicted of phone hacking, who desired support with research on phone-hacking claims against media outlets.

He was referred to a contact, an individual, who was referred to as a legal assistant and was remunerated £600 a session for counsel.

His statement claimed he was told lawsuits against publications were likely to settle out of court, as the papers did not want the publicity or financial burden of a court case, and were referred to to him as a “perfect scam” and a “gravy train”.

The investigator, who said he had stopped working for publications in 2003, asserted he had informed Johnson “a hundred times that the publisher were not one of my customers”.

Present Legal Situation

The witness was originally a testifier for the claimants, which features David Furnish and others, but is now the topic of disputes about whether or not he will be summoned as a testifier for the proceedings.

A barrister, for the defendant, petitioned the judge to allow him to cross-examine Burrows, while another barrister, for the claimants, made an request to call his testimony as rumor.

The judge allowed Sherborne one week to determine if he wished to seek a court order to compel the witness, and advised him if the witness gave testimony that was contradictory with the information they had gathered, then he could request to treat him as “adverse”.

A further preliminary proceeding in the case is anticipated to be held before the year’s conclusion.