Barnard Castle trip DID breach lockdown - police

THE Prime Minister’s senior adviser did breach lockdown regulations when he travelled to Barnard Castle, a police investigation has found.

Dominic Cummings admitted to making the 50-mile round trip on April 12 with his wife and four-year-old son to check his eyesight was okay for travelling back to London.

Mr Cummings has said that he acted “lawfully and reasonably” after coming under fire for making a 260-mile trip from London to his parents’ County Durham farm in March.

He said the reason for returning to the North East was because his wife had developed coronavirus symptoms and they had issues around childcare if they both became unwell.

Detectives have interviewed a key witness and tracked the movements of Mr Cummings’ car using automatic number plate recognition software to check where cameras have caught a vehicle.

Durham Constabulary has said it doesn’t consider Mr Cummings locating to Durham an offence but said the trip to Barnard Castle was a “minor breach” of the lockdown rules.

In a statement released by the force, it states: “Durham Constabulary have examined the circumstances surrounding the journey to Barnard Castle (including ANPR, witness evidence and a review of Mr

Cummings’ press conference on 25 May 2020) and have concluded that there might have been a minor breach of the Regulations that would have warranted police intervention.

“Durham Constabulary view this as minor because there was no apparent breach of social distancing.

“In line with Durham Constabulary’s general approach throughout the pandemic, there is no intention to take retrospective action.”