How we identified Banksy as a nice middle-class boy 16 years ago

By Claudia Joseph and Simon Trump Published: 19:15 EDT, 29 March 2024 | Updated: 19:26 EDT, 29 March 2024 Had Banksy, the millionaire graffiti artist, been finally unmasked? There were plenty who thought so just a few days ago, when, amid feverish excitement, a bulky grey-haired man in shades was pictured working on a new piece of street art in north London. The mural in question, a tree design in vivid green to mark the first day of spring, was undoubtedly by Banksy. And this was the clearest picture of the ‘artist’ yet. Alas, the suspect turned out to be a 67-year-old builder called George Georgiou, a man who boasts he is without a creative bone in his body. Which means the ‘mystery’, if that’s what it is, lives on — although for us, the real puzzle is why anyone should think there’s a single drop of intrigue left to be squeezed from Britain’s most famous ‘guerrilla’ artist. Because it is now 16 years since he was comprehensively outed in The Mail on Sunday thanks to our year-long investigation. We were clear then that Banksy is neither riddle nor enigma but a 50-year-old man called Robin Gunningham.  We are just...