Sue Gray furious after police intervention as Scotland Yard contacts ‘partygate’ suspects
Sue Gray, the civil servant looking into the lockdown-breaking parties allegedly held at No 10, is furious after the Met’s intervention.
Gray, who was told by Scotland Yard on Friday to make “minimal reference” to the parties, was frustrated and angered by the situation, as her report is expected to be published within days, the Times reported.
“For the events the Met is investigating, we asked for minimal reference to be made in the Cabinet Office report,” the police forced said yesterday in an initial statement.
“The Met did not ask for any limitations on other events in the report, or for the report to be delayed, but we have had ongoing contact with the Cabinet Office, including on the content of the report, to avoid any prejudice to our investigation.”
In a second statement, commander Catherine Roper, at the helm of the central specialist crime command, added: “To protect the integrity of the police investigation, as is appropriate in any case, and to be as fair as possible to those who are subject to it, the Met has asked for minimal reference to be made in the Cabinet Office report to the relevant events.
“This will only be necessary until these matters are concluded, and is to give detectives the most reliable picture of what happened at these events . . . we have not delayed this report and the timing of its release is a matter for the Cabinet Office inquiry team.”
The move sparked a wave of criticism, as it was thought to have offered Prime Minister Boris Johnson a way out of .
“It feels to me that she [Dame Cressida Dick, the Met commissioner] strangely allowed Boris to get off the hook,” Sir Peter Fahy, head of national counterterrorism, told The Times. “At the moment it’s really taken the spotlight off Boris.”
Gray’s comments come on the same day Scotland Yard started sending letters to the ‘partygate’ suspects, asking participants to either provide a “reasonable excuse” or be fined, The Telegraph reported.