Johnson aide says childcare concerns were behind decision to leave virus lockdown

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s most senior lieutenant fended off charges of having broken Britain’s lockdown rules, in a public statement in the garden at No 10 Downing Street yesterday.

Dominic Cummings was sick at the end of March, shortly after he moved his family to a property 420 kilometres away in County Durham.

Sightings of Mr Cummings in the area were reported to police as a breach of the government’s stay-at-home rules to fight the spread of Covid-19.

News of the sightings was reported last week, leading to accusations that Mr Cummings breached the tough rules he helped to draw up.

Yesterday, Mr Cummings said he had been asked by Mr Johnson to clear up “misunderstandings” about his trip.

The sequence of events began when his wife, journalist Mary Wakefield, rang him to say she was badly ill.

“None of our usual childcare options were available at the time,” Mr Cummings said.

“I was worried that if my wife and I were both seriously ill, possibly hospitalised, there was nobody in London that we could reasonably ask to look after our child and expose themselves to Covid.

“I think that people like me who make rules should be accountable for their actions. The rules make clear that if you are dealing with small children, that can be exceptional circumstances.

“This was a very complicated, tricky situation. Arguably it was a mistake I didn’t call the prime minister.

“What I did in these 14 days, I think I behaved reasonably.”

He said threatening behaviour outside his London home, based on false reporting that he opposed a shutdown for the pandemic, left him worried about the family’s safety if he and his wife were ill.

Hundreds of kilometres north, his sister and nieces had volunteered to look after his young son. Mr Cummings said he did not stop on the journey to the property.

The family was isolated and the nearest property was almost a kilometre away.

Mr Cummings said he became gravely ill the day after arriving at the property.

He returned to work in midApril and has since taken a hard line in internal discussions on lifting the lockdown, which has caused a recession and cut off tens of millions from their family members for eight weeks.

Some of the most pointed criticism of Mr Cummings has come from people who were kept apart from dying husbands or wives because of the lockdown orders.