Boris Johnson questioned under police caution in UK first – media — Analysis
The Prime Minister is being required to finish a police questionnaire as a part of an investigation into alleged breaches of lockdown guidelines
Boris Johnson has grow to be the primary UK Prime Minister to be questioned below police warning, in keeping with a leaked model of Scotland Yard’s Partygate questionnaire reported by ITV on Tuesday.
As a part of the Metropolitan Police’s investigation into allegations of lockdown-breaching events in Downing Avenue, Johnson and all these suspected of attending have been required to finish a questionnaire. Scotland Yard’s record of questions asks them to offer a “cheap excuse” for his or her presence on the gatherings.
In the beginning of the questionnaire, the doc informs recipients that they’re offering a “written assertion below warning” earlier than stating that “should not have to say something however it might hurt your defence if you don’t point out when questioned one thing which you later depend on in court docket.”
The police’s investigation covers twelve occasions, six of which Johnson is believed to have attended, that had been held in violation of the lockdown guidelines imposed by the UK authorities in response to the Covid pandemic.
Among the many questions which can be reportedly included within the doc, recipients are requested in the event that they attended an occasion and, in that case, they had been a “lawful exception” whereas doing so, and are requested to substantiate the aim of their participation and whether or not they’d interacted with anybody else current.
Responding to the studies, the deputy chief of the opposition Labour Celebration, Angela Rayner, declared that it’s “a nationwide embarrassment that Boris Johnson is now the primary prime minister in British historical past to be questioned below police warning.”
Downing Avenue didn’t state whether or not Johnson had been questioned below warning, solely saying that “we now have confirmed the prime minister has been contacted by the Metropolitan Police.”
The studies in regards to the questionnaire comes as Downing Avenue denied that taxpayers’ cash was spent on the food and drinks consumed on the occasions below police investigation.
In response to a written query from Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Olney, Cupboard Workplace minister Michael Ellis acknowledged “no” when requested if “there was a price to the general public purse from expenditure gatherings being investigated.”
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