Boris Johnson Avoids Additional Fines as Police Finish Lockdown Inquiry

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain has escaped with out extra penalties in a long-simmering scandal that threatened his grip on energy, because the Metropolitan Police introduced on Thursday that they’d concluded an investigation into lockdown-breaking events at Downing Avenue and Whitehall.

The police mentioned they’d imposed 126 fines, generally known as penalty notices, regarding eight social gatherings held in and round Downing Avenue, which mixes workplace house and the prime minister’s official residence, in periods when the federal government restricted social mixing.

Mr. Johnson had already paid one effective for participating in a birthday celebration for him, and he was recognized to have attended different gatherings that have been investigated by the police, however he was not amongst these assessed with extra fines, in response to a Downing Avenue spokesman.

The shortage of another penalties lifts a cloud that had hung over the prime minister because the stories of illicit events first erupted in November final yr. Mr. Johnson had confronted a possible management problem from members of his Conservative Social gathering, however that hazard seems to have receded.

The concentration is going to now shift to the chief of the opposition Labour Social gathering, Keir Starmer, who’s underneath strain for participating throughout a lockdown in a beer-and-Indian-food gathering with members of his occasion that’s being investigated by the police in Durham.

Mr. Starmer has mentioned that if he receives a effective, he’ll step down as occasion chief — a transfer designed to extend the strain on Mr. Johnson, who mentioned he would keep in workplace, no matter whether or not he was discovered to have damaged the regulation.

The Labour Social gathering harshly criticized Mr. Johnson on Thursday, with Angela Rayner, the occasion’s deputy chief, saying in a press release, “Industrial scale rule breaking has taken place on the coronary heart of Boris Johnson’s Downing Avenue.”

However now it’s Ms. Rayner who’s underneath strain. She was alongside Mr. Starmer on the gathering that’s underneath investigation in Durham.

The police in London mentioned that in imposing the fines, 53 went to males and 73 to ladies. Some individuals obtained multiple.

Along with Mr. Johnson, his spouse, Carrie Johnson, was knowledgeable that she wouldn’t face a effective. The chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, who was fined for attending a celebration, will even not obtain any extra penalties, in response to Downing Avenue.

“Our investigation was thorough and neutral and was accomplished as rapidly as we may, given the quantity of knowledge that wanted to be reviewed and the significance of making certain we had robust proof,” the police mentioned in a press release.

The police mentioned 12 detectives labored on the case, code-named Operation Hillman. They reviewed 345 paperwork, 510 pictures and surveillance footage, in addition to accumulating 204 questionnaires.

However the police’s position within the scandal has been sharply criticized. For months the London pressure declined to analyze stories of illicit events at authorities places of work, which emerged in every day media stories, solely to reverse course and open an investigation in late January, simply as a separate inner authorities investigation of the events was about to be launched.

That report, by a senior civil servant, Sue Grey, was printed solely in extremely redacted kind. With the police investigation accomplished, the federal government has pledged to launch the complete report. It’s anticipated to solid a harsh gentle on the alcohol-fueled tradition in Downing Avenue underneath Mr. Johnson’s management.