“It’s a joke,” one No 10 source told The Independent. “He told people to ‘let their hair down’ and enjoy their drinks which they’d earned for ‘beating back the virus’.”

Anna Isaac www.independent.co.uk 

Downing Street staff who received fines for attending the same lockdown parties as Boris Johnson have reacted with fury after the prime minister escaped further sanctions on Thursday.

There was anger inside No 10 as the Metropolitan Police concluded its Partygate investigation, leaving the prime minister with just one fixed penalty notice (FPN) compared to some junior staff who amassed as many as five – despite insider accounts that they had attended the same events.

The full findings of Sue Gray, the senior civil servant carrying out a wider report into the scandal, are now expected as soon as next week.

Police said a total of 126 fines were issued to 83 people over events spanning eight dates between May 2020 and April 2021.

Mr Johnson’s wife, Carrie, also received just one penalty linked to her husband’s birthday party on 19 June 2020.

“It’s a joke,” one No 10 source told The Independent. “He told people to ‘let their hair down’ and enjoy their drinks which they’d earned for ‘beating back the virus’.”

They said the prime minister had participated in socialising with officials and advisers in a manner that had been regarded as an endorsement of partying after work.

“He’s a man of little or no integrity,” they added, referring to his handling of the Partygate affair.

A former No 10 official who worked there during the pandemic said that the moment an official line was issued denying parties, “I gasped at the audacity of the lie”.

A spokesperson for No 10 declined to comment.

Legal experts have suggested that Mr Johnson may have escaped fines for attending lockdown-busting parties as his workplace and home are combined within the Downing Street complex.

Covid-19 legislation, which changed numerous times during the period when the parties took place, means that Mr Johnson may have had a “reasonable excuse” in law that prevented him from being fined.

However, the police may have taken a more lenient approach in the Partygate probe, compared to other examples of enforcement.

Kirsty Brimelow QC, a human rights barrister who has represented people fighting Covid fines, told The Independent: “What I saw in cases up and down that country is that the ‘reasonable excuse’ part was never applied – police would only look at exemptions around the gathering itself.”

She added that the police’s approach in the No 10 investigation, of only issuing fines when confident of defending them in court, was different too: “FPNs would be issued if there was a reasonable belief of a breach, rather than having all the evidence shipshape if it went to court.

“The Met has applied the regulations, but applied it in a way which is setting the police a higher bar before issuing an FPN,” Ms Brimelow said.

One Whitehall source said the investigation might have been “legally correct” but it was “morally ridiculous” as given the long hours many officials worked during the height of the pandemic, “we were all living at the office”.

The sense that the investigation had revealed one rule for bosses and another for workers was shared in 70 Whitehall Place, where a fine was issued for an event on 17 December, which cabinet secretary Simon Case was aware of, sources claimed.

Mr Case, the most senior civil servant in the UK, had not suggested the event was inappropriate and chatted to attendees, they said.

The Cabinet Office did not respond to a request for comment.

There was bewilderment among Westminster critics of the PM that he had escaped with only one fine when so many No 10 staff were more harshly punished.

“Some of us don’t understand the police logic on the fines,” said one Conservative MP who has already sent a letter of no confidence in Mr Johnson. “Avoiding fines for events where staff have been fined seems extraordinary.”

Rebels were hopeful that the publication of Ms Gray’s report, expected next week, will trigger a fresh slew of letters to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, who must call a vote on Mr Johnson’s future if requested by 54 Tory MPs.

“Sue Gray might be a flashpoint next week,” one told The Independent. “It’s still a big moment. The fact that he hasn’t been fined again doesn’t necessarily change public anger.

“There are people who are unhappy with him over Partygate who haven’t put letters in. They’ve said they are waiting for Sue Gray. So the time is now.”

But there was a sense among some of Johnson’s critics that the absence of further fines has taken a lot of the momentum out of the drive to oust him.

They urged colleagues who have so far held back from calling for Johnson’s removal to do so if he is admonished by Ms Gray.

Still, one senior Tory MP opposed to Mr Johnson’s leadership was downbeat on the chances of her report triggering a leadership contest, arguing that the biggest point of danger will come in the autumn if Tory poll numbers haven’t improved.

“I don’t think Sue Gray is the be-all and end-all,” said the backbencher. “It’s not a judgement about parties any more – the judgement among colleagues will come in the months ahead on whether he is an election winner or loser.”

Sir Charles Walker, who previously suggested that Mr Johnson should consider his position, said on Thursday he had been “wrong” to think the PM would have to go over Partygate.

“Love him or loathe him Boris Johnson is an extraordinary politician,” the former vice chair of the 1922 Committee told the BBC’s Newsnight.

“Four months ago, people thought he was down and out. I was one of those people. And he just rewrote the script. The prime minister is going to continue at No 10.”

Close Johnson ally Conor Burns appeared to suggest that the Gray report could result in further sanctions for No 10 officials rather than Mr Johnson.

“I think when the Sue Gray report comes there will be questions to be answered in terms of accountability for others, other than the prime minister, for some of the things that happened in No 10,” said the Northern Ireland minister.

Home Office minister Kit Malthouse said it was now time to “move on” from Partygate. “I’m pleased that it’s done … I hope now we can now move on to the really pressing issues,” the policing minister told the BBC’s World at One.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the Partygate affair had undoubtedly been “damaging” for Mr Johnson and the No 10 operation.

“It was wrong, he has apologised a lot for it – and so he should – because they lost control of what was happening in Downing Street,” said the former Tory leader.

With the dust settling on the Metropolitan police’s long investigation into Covid breaches inside Downing Street, one big question remains: how did Boris Johnson escape with just one fine?

Peter Walker www.theguardian.com 

Legal experts say it defies logic – and to many voters, it defies common sense too.

This is, however, a mystery that appears unlikely to be solved any time soon.

It’s not that the PM and his wife got off scot-free. Johnson and Carrie did break Covid laws.

Last month, they received fixed-penalty notices (FPNs) for attending the prime minister’s birthday celebration in June 2020, as did Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, who reportedly made just a fleeting appearance.

But while Johnson is known to have been at up to five other events for which FPNs have been issued, and reportedly poured drinks at one of them, he has escaped further punishment.

What appeared most anomalous, according to Adam Wagner, the Doughty Street Chambers barrister who is an expert on Covid rules, is how Johnson attended gatherings deemed to have breached the rules without himself being fined.

“We still don’t know very much about how the regulations work, because the higher courts haven’t looked at this,” Wagner said. “But generally, the decision is difficult to understand. The way the regulations are drafted is that the gathering itself has to be reasonably necessary, and the reason why somebody participates is not really relevant.”

To escape a fine, Wagner added, Johnson would have needed to provide a reasonable excuse: “But I don’t understand how you could ever reasonably attend an illegal gathering, unless you attended by accident, realised and left very quickly. I don’t see why, if the prime minister had a reasonable excuse for attending, the other people attending wouldn’t.”

One possible escape would be if the police viewed events as more than one gathering – for example as reasonably necessary for work when Johnson was there, but descending into socialising after he left. However, Wagner noted, this would appear to be contradicted by reports such as Johnson pouring drinks.

Another get-out raised by Johnson allies is the fact that Downing Street is both his workplace and home.

However, a change to Covid regulation at the end of May 2020 specifically ended being in your own home as a potential loophole.

Ultimately, without knowing what evidence the police received, it is impossible to be certain why Johnson was fined for the one event and not others.

And given the nature of the Met’s inquiry, this evidence will not be aired in public, beyond whatever necessarily anonymised summary appears in the report of the senior official, Sue Gray, next week.

It is one of the several curiosities of Partygate that it involved huge stakes, not least the political survival of a prime minister, while simultaneously being centred on what are, in strictly legal terms, relatively low-level offences.

“Yes, this was people breaking rules they had made themselves, which is important,” one criminal lawyer noted, speaking anonymously. “But at that the same time, you can very easily be fined more for parking on a double yellow line.”

The nature of the offences meant they fell into the system of FPNs, which are investigated and levied entirely by the police, with courts only becoming involved if the fine is challenged.

Having been forced into an inquiry it had not wanted to undertake by the sheer volume of material gathered by Gray, the Met’s infrequent updates were parsimonious, even opaque, even by the standards of police investigations.

While the force was at times criticised for its approach to openness, there is no obligation for someone to declare an FPN; and if they do not challenge it in court, there is no public record of one being received.

The Met did have a significant amount of evidence to go through: the team of 12 detectives had access to 345 documents, among them witness statements, emails and door logs for one of the UK’s most secure addresses, as well as more than 500 photographs and CCTV images.

However, no one suspected of wrongdoing was formally interviewed. Instead, police received 204 questionnaires filled out by people identified as connected to the gatherings.

This was another complicating factor – some people would have been notably more open and voluble with their answers than others.

“If someone was sent one of those questionnaires and they went to me, I’d say: don’t answer it,” the criminal lawyer said. “You’ve got no obligation to fill it in. You’re not under arrest. You’ve not even been cautioned. If you tell the truth, you might be fined, and if you lie, you’re potentially committing another offence. So why risk it?”

Overall, Wagner said, the lack of transparency from a police-only investigation was “unsatisfactory”.

“The reality of it is that the Metropolitan police have decided there were at least eight illegal gatherings over the course of a year,” he said. “And the prime minister appears to have attended six of them. You think about how careful other workplaces were being, and the actual people who were writing the rules were treating them with a wanton disregard.”

A more legally comprehensible outcome, he said, would have been if police had fined Johnson just for the birthday party while decreeing that the only other illegal gatherings were three others he did not attend – a Christmas party in December 2020 and the two events on the same night in April last year, the night before Prince Philip’s funeral.

“It’s right that they take a cautious approach. And if they had said the other gatherings were on the borderline, so we’re not going to act, I would have thought that was quite liberal of them, but it would have an internal logic,” Wagner said.

“But they have given people criminal penalties for a series of illegal gatherings, just not the prime minister. I think he’s lucky to have got away with it.”

Under the headline:

Tory councillor compared to Jimmy Savile kept role for three years after child sex abuse arrest

On Wednesday, the inews.co.uk carried an investigative report uncovering evidence that:

“The council knew Humphreys was being investigated for sex offences from 2016 but did nothing to prevent him continuing with his duties, which involved him coming into contact with children”

Also:

“A senior council official knew about the police investigation into Humphreys in 2016 because Devon and Cornwall Police asked him, in a formal meeting, if Humphreys’ continuing role as a councillor would bring him into contact with children, i has learned.”

And:

“A leaked memo from East Devon District Council (EDDC) chief executive Mark Williams, which was sent to all 60 councillors earlier this month, states: “An officer knew something dating back to 2016 but was under a duty of confidentiality.”

“A second councillor is also alleged to have told a fellow member that he knew Humphreys had a court hearing coming up but it is not clear if he knew details of the charges.”

The article describes the twists and turns in the history of the investigation dating back to 2004 and earlier. Only after a second victim came forward in 2015 was Humphreys arrested the following year (2016).

It describes how Humphreys spent decades positioning himself at the heart of a powerful network of local politicians and people of influence (see Exmouth Journal prints “No comment” photos). During the 2019 election campaign, Humphreys offered Sir Hugo’s successor, East Devon MP Simon Jupp, the use of a flat he owned in Exmouth where some of his crimes had taken place. Later that year, in December 2019, Humphreys was made an Alderman.  In 2021 he was convicted and jailed for 21 years.

Devon and Cornwall Police refused to confirm or deny if it was investigating other potential crimes committed by Humphreys, or whether any further victims have come forward.

Mr Williams, EDDC CEO, and the official told of the investigation into Humphreys were approached for comment.

A spokesman for EDDC said that Mr Williams will provide “a report to cabinet at the earliest opportunity to enable it to consider commissioning an independent investigation or enquiry by an appropriate independent body”.

A spokesperson for the Conservative Group on EDDC said its councillors “will fully engage with this investigation”.

This latest exposure has prompted Tim, a regular correspondent, to offer the following comments to Owl

(Given added relevance by the current suspension of an MP, arrested following allegations of rape, from parliament).

So,  David Parsley’s piece in the inews suggests that Mark Williams, CEO of EDDC, has apparently admitted to councillors that a single senior EDDC staff member knew, in 2016, that the member of his council, John  Humphreys,  was being investigated for  paedophile crimes. The EDDC officer who gained this information apparently decided against telling others on the grounds of confidentiality!

Unfortunately the inews item is now sadly subscription only so I write largely from my memory of reading it several times.

We are not told how the unnamed officer came by the information – though the suggestion would appear to be that it was from the police. The police would, I believe, only officially pass it to one of three office holders at EDDC: the CEO; the deputy CEO; or the Monitoring Officer. Does Williams include himself when he spoke of a senior EDDC officer? I think the public are entitled to know who the officer concerned was and if it came from police sources – otherwise there are even more questions..

I would also like to know more about the ‘confidentiality’ argument that was apparently put forward for taking no action. Is someone seriously suggesting that the correct course of action, when advised that a councillor is being investigated for the most serious of sexual offences is to keep silent? That officer should have been deeply worried about Humphreys offending again and against the most vulnerable; he should have known he was a school governor (it would be on his declarations of interest) and last of all, he would have known his background when there was discussion about offering alderman status. To stay silent may not be unlawful, but to me it almost rings of aiding and abetting. Am I alone in thinking we should be deeply concerned and demand the fullest of explanations for such a decision? Was nothing learned from the Saville and Harris cases?

I am aware that all too often matters can be misreported, and lose, or gain, in transmission as well as there being another side to the story – but what we know of this demands enquiry and explanation.

I may have old fashioned values but seriously, who would place ‘confidentiality’ above the risks that a free to roam Humphreys placed everyone in? I feel deeply uneasy about any council officer, council member or employee of any grade who would be comfortable with such a decision. If it was kept to the officer receiving the information well it is very short sighted for any such person to believe they were wise enough to make such a decision entirely on their own and without seeking advice from the many external quarters available. Unwise and perhaps arrogant!

But much of this is conjecture and assumes the knowledge came to the unnamed officer in the way of proper business. We need, I think, for that to be confirmed promptly.

Some of us have long suspected that one or more officers were well aware of the investigation, and a few past and present Tory councillors too. Why has it taken so long to get this  awareness by an EDDC officer even partially released? The new council and its members have been pushing for an enquiry by local Tories but it seems they are unwilling to take it on. Tory head office also has no comment I gather.

Why, on top of local efforts, has it taken a national newspaper investigative reporter to get even a basic admission out of the CEO?

I am pleased that there is a call for a full investigation as in times past one suspects a bucket of whitewash would have been ordered. But I must express concern about who might be appointed as the investigative authority. It is my firm belief, from experience, that nobody but the police can ask the appropriate questions and expect answers. ‘Private’ investigators can be readily ignored – and we already have signs that some in the local Tory party seem unwilling to cooperate – I believe the report they were asked for has never appeared.

I most firmly believe that Devon and Cornwall Police are not the force to investigate. They have already been asked about their role, yet appear to have done nothing. Their chief has made it known that he is leaving this year, and this needs resolving before he leaves. They have also been criticised by the main witness.