One of the witnesses who reported Dominic Cummings for allegedly breaking lockdown drove 250 miles during it himself, while another now admits he made up a sighting of the adviser — supposedly as a joke.
Retired teacher Robin Lees reported Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser to the police after seeing him near Barnard Castle, where he had made a short drive to see if he was well enough for a longer journey back to London.
Durham Constabulary, which did not find that Mr Cummings’ initial trip from London broke the lockdown rules, has said the Barnard Castle outing may have been a “minor breach”.
However, the Mail on Sunday now suggests that the man who reported Mr Cummings to the police force “broke lockdown regulations himself by making a 526-mile round-trip from Barnard Castle to London to bring his university student daughter to the family home.
“My daughter came back from Canada and isolated in London. She never came home for seven weeks. I didn’t break any lockdown rules. I went and collected her after we were told we could,” Lees insisted to reporters, referring to an easing of travel restrictions on May 11th to allow people to drive as far as they pleased — although the Mail on Sunday notes that “this was only if they were going to an outdoors location and as long as the social distancing protocol was observed.”
“I tell the truth and I do not like this intrusion into my family and this is absolutely nothing to do with them,” Lees complained — somewhat ironically, given Cummings did himself move from London to Durham to make sure his 4-year-old would not be without childcare if he and his wife were incapacitated by their coronavirus infections.
“I do object to my family being involved. This is nothing to do with my family, right? I have had a lot of stuff on Twitter,” Lees added.
The revelations come as another supposed witness to Cummings’ movements during lockdowns, Remain supporter Tim Matthews, reveals he outright fabricated his sighting of Cummings — lending credence to the Brexiteer’s insistence that allegations of a second trip to Durham are wholly false.
“I made that up afterwards, a few days ago in fact,” Matthews admitted.
“I modified it for a little bit of comedy value,” he added, referring to Strav running app data which he doctored in order to make it look as though he was in an area where Cummings was alleged to have travelled.
“I undid it later, I’m sorry. A bit of comedy value even if it was really inappropriate,” Matthews added.
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