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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will face no further penalties over the “partygate” scandal.
Britain’s Metropolitan Police said Thursday that their investigation into the leader’s violations of the country’s COVID-19 restrictions had ended.
BORIS JOHNSON TO BE FINED OVER LOCKDOWN PARTIES, UK GOVERNMENT SAYS
“The Met has confirmed they are taking no further action” against the prime minister, spokesman Max Blain said, according to The Associated Press,
Johnson was fined over lockdown-breaching gatherings at his official residence and other government locations.
In this photo issued by UK Parliament, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, London, Wednesday, May 18, 2022.
(Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament via AP)
He apologized last month for his role in the parties and gatherings and police said they issued a total of 126 fixed-penalty notices to 83 people for gatherings on eight dates between May 2020 and April 2021.
Some people, including senior officials, received multiple fines.
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Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Johnson’s wife, Carrie, have said they were among those fined for attending a birthday party thrown for the prime minister in June 2020.
Johnson, who has already paid one fine, has denied that he knowingly broke the rules, insisting that it did not occur to him that gathering in his office for a period of what he said was less than 10 minutes was a party.
However, reports that the prime minister and others had broken strict pandemic restrictions as residents were stuck inside have triggered calls for Johnson to resign from his post.
Additional probes into the matter – and whether he lied to parliament – will continue, including an internal report by senior civil servant Sue Gray.
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According to Johns Hopkins’ Coronavirus Resource Center, more than 178,000 people have died from coronavirus in the U.K.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
