How Matt Hancock footage got leaked to press, UK to investigate
Conservative Party Member of Parliament Brandon Lewis said the department will be launching an internal investigation into the matter to find out how the footage was leaked.
Britain’s health ministry has announced plans to investigate how the CCTV footage of former health secretary Matt Hancock embracing his aide was leaked to the press, Reuters reported on Sunday.
Conservative Party Member of Parliament Brandon Lewis said the department will be launching an internal investigation into the matter to find out how the footage, which captured the former health secretary and his aide Gina Coladangelo embracing in the halls of Whitehall, was leaked.
“It is a matter I know the department of health will be looking into to understand exactly how that recording ... got out of the system," Lewis told Reuters.
Hancock’s party colleague also said that the disgraced minister had accepted his mistake and duly apologised, but his actions had rendered his position indefensible, taking away attention from the government’s wider efforts to combat the ongoing pandemic.
"What Matt did was wrong, he acknowledged that, it's why he apologised immediately for his behaviour and acknowledged what he did was wrong,” Lewis said.
“It's ultimately why he's taken the decision that his position was untenable and distracting from the wider work we all have to do ... to move out of the pandemic," he added.
Hancock resigned on Saturday after being accused of breaking coronavirus restrictions his ministry had imposed at the time of the incident in early May when a deadly mutant strain of the virus was in circulation, and people living in separate households were banned from initiating intimate contact.
The opposition Labour Party slammed Hancock for breaking coronavirus restrictions, raised questions about appointment processes in the government and the use of taxpayer’s money in ruminating government personnel after news emerged of Hancock and Coladangelo being university friends.
Hancock on his part apologised to the general public for breaching “the social-distancing guidance”. He was replaced by Sajid Javid, former chancellor of the exchequer, marking the second high profile exit in the Boris Johnson-led government.
