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A private investigator has been accused of ‘hacking’ and ‘withholding’ an iPhone considered critical to the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of rugby and reality TV star Levi Davis, Byline Times can reveal
Gavin Burrows took the device from Mr Davis’s grieving family after volunteering his help in their search following the former Bath Rugby and X Factor star’s unexplained disappearance in Barcelona in October 2022 – a case that remains one of Europe’s most perplexing of recent times.
But after falling out with family and friends of the missing man, who say Burrows later became “highly abusive” toward them, prompting an official complaint to his trade body, the phone’s whereabouts – and its secrets – remain a mystery three years later.
“That phone could hold the key to why Levi posted on Instagram before he disappeared saying his life was in danger,” Davis’s mother Julie said today, referring to a harrowing 15-minute film her son made alleging he’d been a victim of targeted drug rape and organised blackmail after appearing on reality TV shows in the UK.
Miss Davis added: “This is why the family are desperate to have the iPhone back. Myself and others have repeatedly asked Mr Burrows to return Levi’s device since spring 2023 so it can be properly forensically examined by the police. He told me that he could not release it to me and then went silent. As far as we are concerned he is responsible for withholding potentially critical evidence.”
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New Version of Events
While the Davis family say Burrows has simply refused to give the iPhone back – and are now publicly calling for its return – Burrows offered a new version of events this week in response to questions from this newspaper.
He claimed that “to the best” of his knowledge a “Spanish consultant operative” gave Levi’s phone to the Catalan authorities, although Byline Times can confirm there is no record to support this claim in the official reports of the Investigating Magistrate in Barcelona, Senor Francisco Miralles Carrio.
Burrows did not deny offering to bypass the iPhone’s security in order to “help find” Davis and identify a mystery suspect the sportsman cut short a holiday in Ibiza to meet in Barcelona, arriving by ferry on 29 October, 2022, with just a small backpack of belongings before vanishing five hours later.
Instead, he justified the use of “any feasible means to help find a missing person,” which he said would “naturally be utilised,” insisting: “this is normal procedure in missing person cases,” – potentially tainting what might have been a critical piece of evidence in the police’s criminal investigation.
According to three witnesses, Burrows started making unsolicited offers to bypass the phone’s security in order to access Davis’s private information in 2023.
But his relationship with the family and others later deteriorated sharply following lurid and, it transpired inaccurate, tabloid stories that Davis was fleeing a Somali gang over an alleged £100,000 drugs debt and, separately, that police were going to imminently arrest people close to Levi – articles in which Burrows was a quoted source.
Julie Davis said: “Mr Burrows got in touch out of the blue right after Levi went missing. He offered to help us at a time of great need but very soon it became clear he was more interested in using Levi as a vehicle for self-promotion.
“He propagated a number of false and unhelpful allegations about my son to the press, muddying the focus of the search, and in my opinion cutting across police inquiries in the UK and Spain.
“There are many questions around activity on Levi’s WhatsApp and other apps which may have records of people he was speaking to in the lead up to his disappearance.
“These have been identified by the Barcelona police and other investigations as vital lines of inquiry. Mr Burrows had no right to obstruct that and despite his claims to have given the phone to the Catalan police, they have no record of it, leaving us at a terrible loss yet again.”
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‘Increasingly Hostile’
Miss Davis has shown Byline Times emails and messages which she says demonstrate Burrows becoming increasingly hostile when objections were raised to his “unhelpful” media briefings.
Miss Davis said: “I’m speaking politely, because Gavin was not very nice towards me at all. He practically blamed me for the fact that Levi went missing because, according to him, I was a ‘bad mother’. There were several upsetting phone calls. It felt incredibly cruel, seriously abusive, and highly unprofessional.
“I was trying to mourn the loss of my son and find him, and all Gavin could do was this. I thought ‘what the hell – are there no decent people in the world?’.
“It left me shocked. Made me a bag of nerves. Wondering where I went wrong, thinking maybe perhaps I shouldn’t have allowed Levi to go to Barcelona. Been a bit more protective. All these thoughts were going on. I was questioning this because Levi and my other children have told me on many occasions what a special mother I am.”
Two additional sources have told Byline Times that Burrows’ private investigation company, Line of Inquiry Ltd contacted Levi’s distressed family in the days after he disappeared.
One told how Burrows – who promoted himsel