London’s Metropolitan Police carried out its investigation into lockdown breaches at Downing street during the pandemic “without fear or favour” and was not influenced by the prime minister’s office, the force’s acting commissioner said on Thursday.
The Met, which concluded its investigations last week ahead of the publication of senior civil servant Sue Gray’s critical report into the issue, has come under fire for only fining Prime Minister Boris Johnson for attending a single party in June 2020. This is in spite of photos being included in the Gray report of Johnson taking part in a gathering on November 13, which was deemed a sufficiently serious breach of the rules for at least one person to be issued with a fixed penalty notice.
Setting out the criteria for the Met’s decisions for the first time in a question-and-answer session at the London Assembly, Sir Stephen House said he did not believe there was evidence that the prime minister had “breached [the rules] many other times”. Although he declined to speak about individual fines, he indicated that the amount of time Johnson had spent at the November 13 gathering was a factor.