Met Police Threatened With Legal Action Over Downing Street Christmas Party Investigation
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The Metropolitan Police may face legal action after announcing there won’t be an investigation into the Downing Street Christmas party scandal.
Earlier this week, two damning clips emerged: one showing Jacob Rees-Mogg joking about how the party wasn’t going to be investigated; another of Prime Minister Boris Johnson‘s former spokesperson Allegra Stratton referring to the ‘fictional party’ as a ‘business meeting with cheese and wine’, and laughing about social distancing not being enforced.
Considering the parties are said to have taken place in December last year, when the general public technically wasn’t allowed to see their families for the festivities, it sparked immediate outrage. However, the Met Police said there’s not enough evidence to open an investigation.
‘All this correspondence has been considered by detectives in detail, as well as footage published by ITV News. The correspondence and footage does not provide evidence of a breach of the Health Protection Regulations, but restates allegations made in the media,’ the force said in a statement.
‘Based on the absence of evidence and in line with our policy not to investigate retrospective breaches of such regulations, the Met will not commence an investigation at this time.’
The Good Law Project has since written to the Met asking for further explanation on why the reports haven’t been investigated, as well as threatening legal action.
‘There have been multiple reports from people who say they were in attendance on the night that a party of 40 – 50 people took place in the Prime Minister’s own home. This would have been a clear breach of the ‘tier three’ restrictions in place at the time. Yet – unbelievably – the Met claims there isn’t enough evidence to open a criminal investigation,’ a spokesperson said, as per the Mirror Online.
‘If the Met refuses, Good Law Project will consider suing,’ the spokesperson added, with the firm’s director Jo Maugham saying, ‘The law says we are all equal. Great and small alike, subject to the same laws. That’s what the law says – and the Metropolitan Police need to apply it.’
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Topics: News, Boris Johnson, Downing Street, Met Police, Now, UK
