Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has accepted the Sandy Hook school shooting was real after insisting for years that it was a staged “false flag” operation.

The Infowars founder claimed “a form of psychosis” led him to question the massacre which claimed the lives of 20 children aged between six and seven years old and six adult members of staff.

He acknowledged the truth about the tragedy in a video deposition for a defamation case being brought against him by the victims’ families – but continued to insist there were “anomalies” in the official account.

“I believe that children died, there was a mass shooting,” he said. “But I still think there was a man in the woods in camo... people high up in the intelligence agencies have told me there is a cover-up.”

He also reaffirmed his belief in other conspiracy theories relating to 9/11 (“I believe criminal elements of our government were involved”), the Columbine High School massacre (“they knew it was happening, they let it happen”) and the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh (“set up”).

'It's like 1984': US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in bizarre rant against Bilderberg Group on BBC1's Andrew Neil show Show all 2 1 /2 'It's like 1984': US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in bizarre rant against Bilderberg Group on BBC1's Andrew Neil show 'It's like 1984': US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in bizarre rant against Bilderberg Group on BBC1's Andrew Neil show 11-Alex-Jones-BBC.jpg BBC 'It's like 1984': US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in bizarre rant against Bilderberg Group on BBC1's Andrew Neil show 11-Andrew-Neil-BBC.jpg BBC

During his four-hour deposition, filmed earlier this month and shared by the lawyers of one of the victim’s relatives, Mr Jones was confronted by footage of himself promoting the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory in the hours, months and years after the attack in Connecticut on 14 December 2012.

He initially claimed that his first reaction to the shooting was that it was “another person in a black trench coat” who was influenced by video games.

“I know that I didn’t start it [the false flag conspiracy] ... I remember looking at it as a standard horrible tragedy of psychotropic drugs ... like Columbine, shoot-em-up video games.”

Mr Jones was then presented with a video of one of his shows shortly after the shooting, titled “Connecticut school massacre looks like false flag, say witnesses”, in which he suggests it could have been staged so the government could introduce gun control.

“The truth is you were the first person in the world to make the false flag story about Sandy Hook and you did it before the bodies were even cold,” said Mark Bankston of Kaster Lynch Farrar and Ball, representing Sandy Hook parent Scarlett Lewis.

In April 2013 Mr Jones claimed the evidence that Sandy Hook was staged was “overwhelming”. The following year he said: “The whole thing was fake, I mean even I couldn’t believe it. My gosh, it just pretty much didn’t happen.”

In his deposition, Mr Jones responded: “I think children died, mass shootings happen, and it’s a crisis. People go and find anomalies. I’ve gone back and seen how I did believe that stuff ... it’s just the school system and government trying to cover up their liability.

“I still have questions about Sandy Hook but I know people who know the Sandy Hook families who say it’s real so over the years I have had time to retrospectively think about it ... I believe that children died and it’s a tragedy but there’s still real anomalies ... something’s been covered up.”

The radio host also said that in the past he had “almost like a form of psychosis” leading him to question major events like Sandy Hook.

“I basically thought everything was staged, even though I’ve now learned a lot of times things aren’t staged,” he said.

“So I think as a pundit, someone giving an opinion, that, you know, my opinions have been wrong, but they were never wrong consciously to hurt people.”

The attorney asked: “You said false things about Sandy Hook because it was psychosis?”

“Well, I’m just saying that the trauma of the media and the corporations lying so much, then everything begins,” replied Mr Jones.

“You don’t trust anything anymore, kind of like a child whose parents lie to them over and over again, well, pretty soon they don’t know what reality is.”

At other points he was defiant in response to the lawsuit, which alleges he accused relatives of a conspiracy to lie about the tragedy.

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“I am sorry that this has all been out of context, and I believe the kids died,” he said. “The fact is that this [the defamation case] was all a cold-blooded fit that Hillary Clinton lost the election. When Hillary lost the light switch went on, I got sued.”

Mr Jones also rejected claims he was promoting conspiracy theories to make money. “That is not what we are doing ... money coming in is to fund the operation to really question things and to build an alternative system.”