Legal battle looms over Boris Johnson’s COVID pandemic WhatsApp messages

Published

2 years ago

May 29, 2023

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Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are preparing to launch a legal battle over COVID secrets, just hours before a deadline for handing over sensitive material to the official pandemic inquiry.

Mr Johnson, prime minister during the pandemic, is battling to prevent the Cabinet Office releasing all his unedited WhatsApp messages and diaries to the inquiry’s chairwoman, Baroness Hallett.

With the clock ticking towards the 4pm deadline, Baroness Hallett is demanding to see all government messages, which she claims are vital for the inquiry’s deliberations on COVID decisions.

She is said to have warned the government that failure to release material would amount to a criminal offence, a claim the government disputes and is therefore poised to launch a legal challenge.

The government argues that handing over all ministers’ messages to the inquiry – including those of Mr Johnson – would stop them communicating freely in future and that much of the material is irrelevant.

In a ruling last week, Baroness Hallett said: “The entire contents of the documents that are required to be produced are of potential relevance to the lines of investigation that I am pursuing.”

But the government’s opposition to handing over WhatsApp messages and diaries in full and the threat to launch a legal challenge was strongly backed by the former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he accused Lady Hallett of “trying to be Agatha Christie” by turning the COVID inquiry into a “whodunnit” rather than “whatdunnit”.

Sir Iain said: “It’s completely unnecessary chasing individuals. They are on a fishing expedition and they should stop fishing. There is enough evidence out there to know what went wrong.”

Mr Johnson has claimed publishing his diaries in full would be a breach of national security.

And the standoff now appears to be heading for the extraordinary spectacle of a legal battle between the government and the inquiry.

Mr Sunak and the former PM are expected to speak this week, for the first time since last year, about their approach to the COVID inquiry and also to discuss the former PM’s controversial resignation honours list.

Mr Johnson is already furious with the Cabinet Office for referring a dozen diary entries to the police and the Privileges Committee of MPs, which is investigating claims that he lied to the House of Commons.

As a result, officers from the Metropolitan Police and the Thames Valley force are now considering whether meetings that took place with allies in Downing Street and at Chequers in May 2021 broke COVID rules.

The diary entries include Chequers visits by outgoing BBC chairman Richard Sharp, Mr Johnson’s cousin Sam Blyth, who loaned him £800,000, and Tory peer Lord Brownlow, who funded decorations to the Downing Street flat.

Another diary entry refers to a visit to Chequers by two friends of Carrie Johnson, though Mr Johnson’s spokesman has insisted that this event was “entirely lawful”.

In an exclusive Sky News interview at Dulles Airport in the United States last Friday, a defiant Mr Johnson declared: “None of them constitute a breach of the rules during COVID. They weren’t during lockdown.

“They were during other periods of the restrictions. None of them constitute a breach of the rules. None of them involve socialising. It is total nonsense.”

Mr Johnson’s allies are also accusing Oliver Dowden, Cabinet Office minister, deputy prime minister and Mr Sunak’s closest ally, of sanctioning “a political stitch-up” to smear Mr Johnson and prolong the Privileges Committee inquiry.

It has been reported that Mr Johnson believes Mr Dowden “has form”, after helping to trigger his downfall last year with a dawn resignation as party chairman within hours of two disastrous by-election defeats for the Conservatives.

The former PM told Sky News: “I think it’s ridiculous that elements of my diary should be cherry-picked and handed over to the police, to the Privileges Committee, without even anybody having the basic common sense to ask me what these entries referred to.”

Johnson allies have also demanded a leak inquiry to catch the “ratty rat” who disclosed that his diary entries had been passed to police, a reference to the so-called “chatty rat” who leaked a lockdown announcement in November 2020.

Despite the threat of a looming legal battle, a spokesperson for the Cabinet Office said: “We are fully committed to our obligations to the COVID-19 inquiry.

“As such, extensive time and effort has gone into assisting the inquiry fulsomely over the last 11 months.

“We will continue to provide all relevant material to the inquiry, in line with the law, ahead of proceedings getting under way.”

UK

Jon Ruben remanded into custody on child cruelty charges after children fell ill at summer camp

Published

5 hours ago

August 2, 2025

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Jon Ruben remanded into custody on child cruelty charges after children fell ill at summer camp

A man has been remanded into custody charged with child cruelty offences after allegedly lacing sweets with sedatives.

Jon Ruben, 76, of Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, appeared at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Saturday after youngsters fell ill at a summer camp in Stathern, Leicestershire.

He has been charged with three counts of wilfully assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, abandoning or exposing children in a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health.

The charges relate to three boys at the camp between 25-29 July.

Ruben spoke only to confirm his name, age and address.

Police received a report of children feeling unwell at a camp being held at Stathern Lodge, near Melton in Leicestershire, last Sunday.

Officers said paramedics attended the scene and eight boys – aged between eight and 11 – were taken to hospital as a precaution, as was an adult. They have since been discharged.

Police said the “owners and operators of Stathern Lodge are independent from those people who use or hire the lodge and are not connected to the incident”.

Leicestershire Police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, after officers initially reported the incident as having happened on Monday, only to later amend it to Sunday.

It is still unclear when officers responded and whether that is why the watchdog referral has been made.

Ruben will next appear at Leicester Crown Court on 29 August.

UK

‘This shouldn’t have happened’: Bishop who interrupted church choir in dressing gown apologises

Published

15 hours ago

August 2, 2025

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'This shouldn't have happened': Bishop who interrupted church choir in dressing gown apologises

A bishop who interrupted a church concert in his dressing gown – and told singers to “leave his house” – has formally apologised to the choir.

Jonathan Baker was filmed standing barefoot at a microphone as he criticised performers for making a “terrible racket” at St Andrew’s Church in central London.

Addressing the City Academy Voices choir directly, the bishop of Fulham said: “I write to apologise for the distress and offence I caused in bringing the concert to a premature end.

“This should not have happened … I also apologise for remarks which were made in haste, and which have understandably caused hurt and distress.”

Mr Baker had demanded for the performance to stop because it was 10pm – and says he didn’t realise the choir had booked the church until 11pm.

In the statement obtained by Sky News, he added: “I have lived here on site at St Andrew’s for 10 years, for much of which City Academy has rehearsed and performed here.

“You have been, and continue to be, welcome – and I hope that you will be able to continue the relationship with us.

“I can give you every assurance that the events of Friday evening will not recur, and I apologise again to performers (especially those unable to perform at the end of the evening) and the audience alike.”

The choir was performing to a 300-strong audience in Holborn when the lights were suddenly turned off, with Mr Baker declaring the concert was “over”.

A church employee then asked the crowd to leave quietly and for the musicians to step down from the stage, attracting boos from the audience.

The choir went on to perform one last song, an A cappella version of ABBA’s Dancing Queen, before bringing their show to a close.

One member of the audience, who was attending with his 10-year-old daughter, told Sky News he initially thought the interruption was a staged joke.

Benedict Collins had told Sky News: “This work deserves respect, not to be disparaged as a ‘terrible racket’. The people here had put their heart and soul into it.

“The bishop cut them off in midstream, preventing soloists who had worked their hardest from singing – and preventing the audience, which included people of all ages, from enjoying it to the end.”

The choir told Sky News it was “upsetting” that they were unable to finish their show as planned, but “hold no hard feelings and wish the bishop well”.

A spokesperson added: “If anyone is thinking of joining one of our choirs, the City Academy Voices rehearse on Mondays in central London. Dressing gowns optional.”

UK

X criticises Online Safety Act – and warns it’s putting free speech in the UK at risk

Published

15 hours ago

August 2, 2025

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X criticises Online Safety Act - and warns it's putting free speech in the UK at risk

The Online Safety Act is putting free speech at risk and needs significant adjustments, Elon Musk’s social network X has warned.

New rules that came into force last week require platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X – as well as sites hosting pornography – to bring in measures to prove that someone using them is over the age of 18.

The Online Safety Act requires sites to protect children and to remove illegal content, but critics have said that the rules have been implemented too broadly, resulting in the censorship of legal content.

X has warned the act’s laudable intentions were “at risk of being overshadowed by the breadth of its regulatory reach”.

It said: “When lawmakers approved these measures, they made a conscientious decision to increase censorship in the name of ‘online safety’.

“It is fair to ask if UK citizens were equally aware of the trade-off being made.”

X claims the timetable for platforms to meet mandatory measures had been unnecessarily tight – and despite complying, sites still faced threats of enforcement and fines, “encouraging over-censorship”.

“A balanced approach is the only way to protect individual liberties, encourage innovation and safeguard children. It’s safe to say that significant changes must take place to achieve these objectives in the UK,” it said.

A UK government spokesperson said it is “demonstrably false” that the Online Safety Act compromises free speech.

“As well as legal duties to keep children safe, the very same law places clear and unequivocal duties on platforms to protect freedom of expression,” they added.

Users have complained about age checks that require personal data to be uploaded to access sites that show pornography, and 468,000 people have already signed a petition asking for the new law to be repealed.

In response to the petition, the government said it had “no plans” to reverse the Online Safety Act.

Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage likened the new rules to “state suppression of genuine free speech” and said his party would ditch the regulations.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said on Tuesday that those who wanted to overturn the act were “on the side of predators” – to which Mr Farage demanded an apology, calling Mr Kyle’s comments “absolutely disgusting”.

Regulator Ofcom said on Thursday it had launched an investigation into how four companies – that collectively run 34 pornography sites – are complying with new age-check requirements.

These companies – 8579 LLC, AVS Group Ltd, Kick Online Entertainment S.A. and Trendio Ltd – run dozens of sites, and collectively have more than nine million unique monthly UK visitors, the internet watchdog said.

The regulator said it prioritised the companies based on the risk of harm posed by the services they operated and their user numbers.

It adds to the 11 investigations already in progress into 4chan, as well as an unnamed online suicide forum, seven file-sharing services, and two adult websites.

Ofcom said it expects to make further enforcement announcements in the coming months.