Page:Fifth Report - Matter referred on 21 April 2022 (conduct of Rt Hon Boris Johnson).pdf/29



Gathering on 18 December 2020
75. In December 2020, the Rules and Guidance in force for the prevention of the spread of Covid included restrictions on indoor gatherings of two or more people and maintaining social distancing of 2 metres or 1 metre with risk mitigations in the workplace wherever possible. As we noted above, the previous month (on 9 November), Mr Johnson said at a Covid press conference that “Neither mass testing nor progress on vaccines […] are at the present time a substitute for the national restrictions, for social distancing […] and all the rest. So it is all the more important to follow the Rules.”

76. On Friday 18 December 2020, the No. 10 Press Office held “a planned drinks event with cheese and wine”. It was billed as a Christmas gathering and between 25 and 40 people attended.

77. We received evidence that the gathering began as an end-of-day catch-up but that“ [t]he drinks started after that, probably around 5pm”, that “[a]fter 6.30pm more people turned up across the house”, and that the event “ran on into the early hours–2am from memory”. The gathering was described in evidence we received as “beyond desk drinks”, and “far more relaxed than it should have been”, with people “shoulder to shoulder with each other”. One witness described the event as “[a] gathering rather than a party”, on the grounds that “[a] party has music and dancing, […] I don’t remember any music being on”. One No. 10 staff member who did not attend said they later heard that the gathering had “escalated” and “turned into a party”. Fixed Penalty Notices were issued to some of those who attended.

78. Mr Johnson did not attend this gathering but he was present in No. 10 throughout the day. His official diary records that after chairing a meeting in the Cabinet Room from 8.24 pm, he went up to his flat at 9.58 pm. The staircase to the flat begins next to the doorway leading through to the Press Office. During our site visit to No 10 we established that there is a clear line of view from the foot of the stairs into the Press Office. There are three rooms in a row starting from the staircase: first a small corridor or antechamber, then a vestibule, and then the Press Office itself. None of these rooms is large. The Press Office itself is filled with work stations, so the location which was habitually used for gatherings was the adjacent vestibule (which can be seen being used for this purpose in the photographs of the gathering on 13 November 2020). The vestibule is 4 or 5 metres away from the foot of the staircase.