A private investigator whose disputed confessions of illegal activity form a key part of the case brought by Prince Harry and others against the Daily Mail’s publisher has said the admissions were “a thing of fiction”.

Giving highly anticipated evidence at the high court, Gavin Burrows said the claimants in the case, as well as their lawyers, had been “very misled” over his work, adding that the supposed admissions in his name were “a pack of lies”.

Burrows, who only agreed to give evidence from a secret location overseas, said he believed his signature had been traced on to a witness statement outlining extensive alleged wrongdoing.

Doreen Lawrence, Prince Harry and Elton John are among the seven people who are suing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over alleged unlawful information gathering.

The court has already heard claims that Burrows bugged the windowsills of celebrities and hacked the information of those close to them, such as John’s gardener. Prince Harry also alleged Burrows tapped and hacked the phone of a friend.

In the witness statement from August 2021, Burrows apparently confessed to phone tapping, bugging and a series of other unlawful activities on behalf of ANL. The publisher strongly denies the allegations, describing them as lurid and preposterous.

In a later statement he still stands by, Burrows said he had never conducted any unlawful activity for the publisher or been asked to do so. He now alleges the signature on his original confession had been forged.

Finally appearing in court after months of legal argument about his evidence, Burrows repeatedly said he had never written or signed the original disputed witness statement.

“I did not write the statement, I don’t recognise anything in the statement,” Burrows said. “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 … There has been this whole kind of theatre built around me.”

David Sherborne, the claimants’ lead barrister, successfully requested to question Burrows as a hostile witness as he made the forgery claims.

Burrows claimed the statement had been orchestrated by Graham Johnson, a former phone hacker who turned to examining unlawful activity in the press, who later joined the claimants’ research team in the ANL case.

He said he only ever worked with Johnson because he thought he was being used for his “expert opinion”. The court has already heard he was paid £75,000 by Johnson, including for working on a memoir.

Burrows said the disputed confession contained a litany of admissions that included everything “apart from calling me Jack the Ripper”. He asked Sherborne: “Do you actually really believe anyone’s going to write a statement [like that]?”

“Your little creator of this has gone too far,” he said, referring to Johnson. “I believe he’s conned you, Mr Sherborne.”

In written submissions, the claimants’ legal team has said it was impossible for the Burrows signature on the 2021 statement to be forged, adding that it was a “wild and unsubstantiated” claim.

In court, Burrows said he thought he was being “nice and kind” to Lady Lawrence by contacting ANL in 2023 to say he had never made the confession. “I thought I was saving Baroness Lawrence from being conned. Things escalated, I guess,” he said.

Burrows also went on to question the validity of his signatures on other documents in other cases relating to unlawful activities by newspapers.

At one point, Burrows said he had been “taking the piss” out of Johnson in some of his conversations with him, stating the researcher had been repeatedly asking him about any work he had done for ANL. He claimed Johnson then entered the “banter” into evidence.

What was previously dubbed in court the “Burrows conundrum” has hung over the entirety of the three-month, multimillion-pound case.

Sherborne said Burrows had been content with his original evidence until he fell out with Johnson over money in 2022. “You decided to switch sides out of revenge against Mr Johnson,” Sherborne said.

Sherborne said the 2021 witness statement was “entirely consistent and true that you acted for Associated Newspapers”.

Burrows denied Sherborne’s assertions.

Sherborne also said Burrows had been aided by legal funding from ANL. Burrows said he had not received money directly.

The case continues.