Outrage of tragic families denied their f inal farewells
FAMILIES whose final farewells to loved ones were hit by lockdown rules have called for Boris Johnson to resign and accused him of lying about the No 10 garden party.
Tracy Waters, 49, was forced to have a ten-minute ceremony with only eight present to bury her son Jack Mandeville, 25, two days before the ‘bring your own booze’ gathering attended by the Prime Minister on May 20, 2020.
‘I’m flabbergasted,’ she said after watching Prime Minister’s Questions, during which Mr Johnson said he ‘believed implicitly that this was a work event’.
Miss Waters, of Billingham, County Durham, added: ‘Of course he knew it was a party. He has got to go now – you cannot keep making excuses for how you behaved. People are getting sick of his lies. I am not a political person, but he has made a mockery of us.’
Chris Barrett-Hall, 35, spent May 20, 2020 agonising over which five people could attend the funeral of his grandmother Deirdre Llewellyn, 76, who had died three days earlier from lung cancer. The former NHS worker from Liverpool said Mr Johnson’s excuse at PMQs was ‘absolute rubbish’.
Mr Barrett-Hall added: ‘I always liked that guy when he took over, I really had faith.
‘But he’s broken my heart. He’s supposed to represent our country and he’s let me down and I’m devastated.
‘I could tell he didn’t mean it when he apologised. The excuse – he didn’t realise it was a party – well, that’s an absolute joke.’
Geraldine Hackford, 49, had to campaign for weeks so that she and her six siblings could bury her father Gerald, 72, in Sheffield two days before the party in the garden at No 10.
She said last night after watching the Prime Minister’s apology that it ‘wasn’t good enough’, adding: ‘It is too late for that.
‘It’s disgusting. He’s going to brush it off as a work event, but he wasn’t working. I’m fuming. The sooner Boris Johnson gets out, the better the country will start running.’
Steve Hynd, 35, whose brother could not attend his 80-year-old father Mike’s funeral on May 20, said Mr Johnson’s performance at PMQs yesterday ‘made a mockery of those who have lost their lives during this pandemic’.
Mr Hyde, of Stroud, Gloucestershire, added: ‘It was abundantly obvious that he was, once again, trying to save himself.
‘His apology rang hollow exactly because we already know he was only apologising because he was found out.
‘The idea that he thought it was a work event... You just have to say those words out loud and let them hang in the air to see how lacking of weight they are.’
Jean Adamson had to say her last goodbyes to her father Aldrick, 98, over Zoom when he died in Sherrell House care home in Chigwell, Essex, on April 13, 2020.
‘I haven’t taken any comfort or solace away from Boris’s... performance,’ the Care Quality Commission consultant told Sky News.
‘He continues to wriggle and to try and get away and get out of this and save his own hide – that was very clear to me.
‘The fact that he is saying that he didn’t know it was a party, that he believed it was a work event – these are lies that he continues to peddle. It is just so offensive and so insulting.’
She added: ‘What we have here is more obfuscation, smoke and mirrors and he continues to lie his way into trouble and then tries to lie his way out of it.
‘I’m afraid I’m not at all impressed and I don’t feel any sense of comfort from that apology.’
‘He was, once again, trying to save himself’