Fines for Downing Street partygoers
POLICE will offer Downing Street partygoers the chance to pay fines instead of facing interviews from officers.
Fixed-penalty notices will be dished out to those involved.
The fixed penalty notice – recognition that it is a minor offence – will not be made public unless recipients opt to challenge it through the courts, when the information will go out into the public domain.
Challenges can be made after a police letter arrives and are likely to include cases of mistaken identity, or if someone was genuinely working at the time of the offence.
The Metropolitan Police usually hands out fixed-penalty notices on the spot, not retrospectively.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister promised that a Cabinet Office report into alleged lockdown-breaching parties in Downing will be published “in full”.
But Boris Johnson was yesterday still unable to confirm when the findings of senior civil servant Sue Gray’s probe will be released. Whitehall insiders say police are holding up the dossier because of concerns it could interfere with their investigations.
Mr Johnson was understood still not to have received the report last night, suggesting it was unlikely to be published before next week.
On a visit to NorthWales yesterday, Mr Johnson insisted he was focusing on delivering the voters’ priorities.
He said: “What I hope people understand is that while we wait…we’ve got to get on.” Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said last night: “After what everybody’s been through in the last year or two, huge sacrifices have been made, the least they’re entitled to is the truth about what the Prime Minister was up to.”