Scotland Yard detectives investigating alleged lockdown-breaking parties in Whitehall have obtained more than 300 photographs and 500 pages of documents showing what Sue Gray’s inquiry believes to be potential rule-breaking.
Police said they had received photographic and digital evidence from Gray’s inquiry, and are racing to work out who will be asked to admit their guilt and accept a fine.
The Guardian understands that the images include photos taken at parties and those taken from security-system cameras showing when people entered and exited buildings. The photographs also include data showing who was where and when, all of which can establish guilt or innocence and whether the threshold for issuing a fine has been met.
In addition, the dossier passed to the Metropolitan police by the Gray inquiry includes screenshots of WhatsApp messages about parties, as well as emails about the gatherings.
One incident under criminal investigation is a gathering in Johnson’s flat on 13 November 2020 at which it is believed his wife, Carrie Johnson, was present. The Met police commissioner, Cressida Dick, upon announcing the police intervention last Tuesday, said her force would tackle “the most serious and flagrant” rule breaches.
Police may want to question Mrs Johnson and the prime minister, who was by his own admission at two events in Gray’s report that are now under investigation by Scotland Yard.
These are the May 2020 garden party, followed days later by a birthday gathering with cake for Johnson in the cabinet room. The prime minister says he attended both only briefly.
The Met’s special enquiries team is investigating 12 parties on eight separate dates. Detectives will match the evidence from Gray’s dossier, gather its own, and match that against the Covid rules in place at the time.
In a statement, the Met said: “We are now reviewing it at pace to confirm which individuals will need to be contacted for their account. This prioritisation will include reviewing all the material from the Cabinet Office, which includes more than 300 images and over 500 pages of information.”
The Met also defended its decision to ask Gray to withhold key detail of the worst breaches. It is the force’s third attempt at an explanation after a barrage of criticism.
The decision led Gray to pull extensive detail from her report about the clearest prima facie breaches, which pose the gravest danger to Johnson’s grip on power.
The Met said it did not want those it is treating as suspects lying because they knew what detectives had, as well as wanting to avoid witnesses’ memories being corrupted by extensive recitation of details if Gray’s full report had been made public.
The Met said: “The reason this request is necessary is that in any investigation officers seek independent accounts from each individual, as free from the influence of others’ recollections as possible.
“Officers would also seek to avoid providing details of their investigation in advance to those they contact, so that individuals are not tempted to shape their accounts according to what is in the public domain.”
Those who contest any decision by the Met that they should face a fine will have their case decided in a magistrates court.
One issue is that the public may never know who has been interviewed as a suspect under caution – which now could include the prime minister and his wife – nor who is issued a fine. Police rules say people should only be named when they are charged, except in rare circumstances. Furthermore, the Met has not been naming those issued with fines for breaking Covid laws.
