Legal action has been launched over the Metropolitan Police’s alleged failure to “adequately investigate” Boris Johnson’s attendance at illegal Downing Street parties.
The Good Law Project has given the force two weeks to respond to its legal letter before applying for a judicial review in the High Court.
The group is representing Lord Paddick, who is a former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and is now a Liberal Democrat peer in the House of Lords.
A letter published on Wednesday said the action was over the “apparent failure of the Metropolitan Police Service to adequately investigate, or investigate at all, the prime minister’s participation in three unlawful gatherings held at 10 Downing Street”.
It said the parties in question were on 13 November 2020, where photos published this week show Mr Johnson standing with staff and appearing to make a toast, and on 17 December 2020 and 14 January 2021.
The claimants believe that the prime minister was not sent a questionnaire by the Metropolitan Police in relation to the three gatherings, and said that “constitutes a failure to investigate adequately”.
They called on the Metropolitan Police to re-open the investigation or provide detailed reasons for its refusal to do so.
Do calm down Omah, your touchiness is getting boring.
I was answering Gummy, is that not allowed? And I was talking about the politicians, journalists and lawyers actually, because all they do is chase each others tails to make even more scenes.
I couldn’t help but notice the BBC’s interest, that’s all the media I do, five minutes a day. I also get news stories from OFC and you and definitely unhealthy interest there.
He should be sacked for that, and breaking the law, but there’s no mechanism for doing it unless his party turn against him.
Which they won’t, for self-serving political reasons
Which makes them, the people defending Johnson, and those indulging in whataboutery about Starmer to muddy the water as much to be despised as Johnson
And the only person wasting police time is Johnson himself, because he doesn’t have the integrity or decency to resign for what he did or the morals to feel any shame
I remember watching his elevation to party leader some years back on tv and thinking - “is that the best that the tories can ever do - what a disaster” - it was obvious then he would keep leading them down rabbit holes and he is still doing it cos he’s a bit of a wabbit himself!
Sir Stephen House said the decisions made by officers investigating lockdown parties at No 10 were correct.
On Thursday, appearing in front of the London Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee, the Met Police’s acting commissioner was asked about how the force handled the investigation and decided who should be fined. One committee member, Labour’s Unmesh Desai, asked why the prime minister had only received one fine “when there was clear evidence suggesting he had breached the law quite a few times”.
In reply, Sir Stephen said: “I don’t believe there is clear evidence that the prime minister breached many other times. I’m not particularly concerned about what the prime minister thinks, I do my job without fear or favour,” Sir Stephen said, who is in post until a replacement is found for former boss Dame Cressida Dick.
He said one challenge officers faced was working out which gatherings were work-related, and which ones were not. “I think it’s impossible to expect an officer, walking through a room with a lot of people in it, to work out whether or not these people are breaching coronavirus regulations when it’s taken a team of experienced detectives many many weeks to do the same thing,” Sir Stephen said.
Setting out how the Met Police carried out its investigation, Sir Stephen said officers examined “every case”, looking at “hundreds of documents, including emails, electronic door logs, diary entries, witness statements, photographs, CCTV images, and we sent questionnaires to people who we felt may have breached legislation”. Officers looked at “each individual’s activity” at each event, how long it lasted and the amount of time an attendee spent there, Sir Stephen said.
As part of its investigation, the Met Police sent out questionnaires to suspected Covid rule-breakers but there were no interviews under caution. Sir Stephen said said the “vast majority” of people returned their questionnaires, but did not say who did not and denied it had hampered the force’s investigation of them.
IMO, it appears that the “investigation” was incompetent and shoddy at best and subservient to the PM’s interests at worst …
BJ is and has always been a notorious and well-documented rule-breaker and liar - only a fool or a toady would be blind to the evidence …
