Mike Schwarz, partner at Hodge, Jones & Allen, and Matthew Ryder QC, Matrix, will lead the team of senior lawyers. They represent a group of citizens including medical professionals, scientists, COVID-19 survivors and families of COVID-19 victims, seeking to persuade the police to re-open and properly investigate Cummings’ visit to Durham and the ensuing impact on the control of the pandemic. If the evidence allows, they want him to be prosecuted.
Schwarz
said there would be four planks to the campaign: to ask Durham Constabulary to
explain their process and actions; to ask a Metropolitan Police specialist team
to investigate all Cummings’ actions in London; to press the Crown Prosecution
Service to consider a public prosecution; and, if these routes fail, to bring a
private prosecution.
‘It
seems, across the country that people believed Dominic Cummings broke the law,
and put lives at risk, in what he did by leaving London, his conduct in Durham,
his disregard for the spirit and letter of the regulations and his actions’
impact on public health messaging,’ Schwarz said.
‘The
broad consensus of public opinion is that he broke the law on public health,
and the entire weight of the state has been deployed to prevent proper
investigation and proper due process.’
He
said Durham Police were operating ‘in a highly charged political environment,
and we want to know exactly what they did to establish what Cummings did in
Durham, given the many inconsistencies in his own account.
‘But
also, we want to know what the Met Police did to investigate the initial
alleged breach, given in our view there were no exceptional circumstances, and
the clause of the law he relied upon was intended to protect child abuse and
domestic violence victims.’
Campaign
supporters gave their reasons for backing the action. Mental health nurse Andy
Toogood, from Hull, said: ‘It was clear that keeping Cummings was more
important than defeating COVID.
‘NHS
and social care workers have risked their lives and feel badly let down. It is
also clear that the lockdown is now breaking down in part because of what
happened and that in turn will put more lives at risk. I know many colleagues
will also want to support this.’
North
London GP Caroline Dickinson said she had rarely known such anger among both
NHS staff and patients. Daryl Clarke, a Company Director of a technology
business based in Ascot, Berks, said: ‘I am equally enraged and disappointed
that a senior government advisor, responsible for drafting the lockdown laws,
would not only blatantly go against the rules but then have the gall to go on
national television and lie about the circumstances. The vast majority of
Britain has followed the lockdown to the letter, in some cases at great
personal sacrifice including seeing loved ones die alone. Mr Cummings should
not only be removed from government but, if at all possible, prosecuted.’
