Scotland Yard announces 20 fines for Downing Street parties

The London Metropolitan Police has recommended the imposition of 20 fines on people who attended any of the parties held in Downing Street during the covid-19 pandemic, a controversy that clouded Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s commitment to the measures that he himself promoted.

In January, the Police opened their own investigation into twelve of these events on eight different dates, with the aim of verifying whether the regulations imposed by the Government to contain the spread of the coronavirus had indeed been violated.

Scotland Yard has confirmed in a statement that it is in favor of imposing 20 fines, although it is for now a first evaluation given “the significant amount of material” that remains to be examined. It does not clarify either how these punishments will be distributed, since it considers that giving more details can contribute to identifying the people indicated.

The Police investigation was launched outside the independent report commissioned by the Government and which has already called into question some meetings held between May 2020 and April 2021. Johnson, who attended at least three of them, has apologized but he has always maintained that the rules were not breached.