The Guardian has admitted that a rogue reporter fabricated interviews in articles for the newspaper and falsely claimed to have been present at events he wrote about.

Joseph Mayton, a freelance who has been writing for the Guardian since 2009, has been accused of making up quotes in some of his stories, even filing interviews with people who later said they had never spoken to him.

The Guardian, which was instrumental in bringing about the Leveson Inquiry into press standards with its investigation of phone-hacking at the News of the World, has now removed 13 of Mr Mayton's articles from its website. Many others have been amended to remove unreliable material or correct inaccuracies.