A grieving daughter from Wigan says Prime Minister Boris Johnson 'lied' to her after her father died of coronavirus during the first national lockdown. Hannah Brady's dad, Shaun, worked at the Heinz factory in Wigan which stayed open during the first strict lockdown.
Hannah, 24, says the 55-year-old dad-of-two 'paid the ultimate price' for being a key worker after he contracted the virus and died following 42 nights in a coma. He died on May 16, 2020 and had no underlying health conditions.
Hannah, who is a member of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, was one of the few people to receive a face-to-face apology from Boris Johnson back in September 2021. But since the release of the damning Sue Gray report, detailing lockdown busting boozy parties, she now feels Mr Johnson has 'disregard' for the public.
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Speaking to the Mirror, Hannah said: "He apologised, he said that he’d done everything he could to follow the rules and to save people like dad. He sat face to face across from me in the same garden where he’d had this lockdown outdoor party, and he lied to me."
She added: "The culture in Downing Street of these parties, and the disregard for the majority of the public’s safety starts and stops with Boris Johnson." On top of detailing events enjoyed at the Prime Minister’s headquarters, Sue Gray has also published messages which show that officials talking about how they seemed to 'have got away with... our drinks'.
"To see WhatsApp messages in the Sue Gray report by senior officials bragging that they’ve gotten away with parties… just screams contempt," Hannah said.
"His funeral was 10 people outside in the rain. We couldn’t touch his coffin. We couldn’t have an open casket, couldn’t see his body. We did stick to the rules absolutely. To the point where when Dad was phoning me to say ‘I can’t breathe’, I couldn’t even go down to check if he was still alive in like the nine hours between him calling an ambulance and them turning up.
"He was not allowed a wake, but somebody else was allowed a party where they could vomit red wine up a wall." Hannah added: "I was allowed a 20 minute funeral outside. Boris Johnson stayed at an outdoor gathering for 25 minutes. He had five minutes longer at a party in May than I had at my dad’s funeral the following month in June."
