Scotland Yard’s top cop has suggested Tories will be hit with more Partygate fines after the Mirror published damning video of aides dancing, drinking and laughing at Covid rules.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said footage of a knees up at Tory HQ told a much clearer story than a previously seen photograph.
He told The News Agents Podcast: As people know, that case has been previously looked at based on a photo.
“It's very obvious a video tells a much richer, clearer story than a photo. And so, the team are looking at that with a view to whether that provides a basis for further investigation."
The bombshell tape shows Conservative campaign staff twirling each other around to the sounds of The Pogues' Fairytale of New York.
It was filmed in December 2020 when socialising indoors was banned in many parts of the country including London.
Sir Mark implied that action is likely to be taken over the footage.
He said: "I think we can all see the colourful nature of the video and how much it tells a story way beyond the original photo. I need to let a team work through that but I think we can all guess which way it will go."
The force considers various factors when deciding whether to investigate alleged breaches of Covid rules retrospectively.
One of the things we've taken account of in the past, of course, has been those involved in sort of setting the law and setting the policy being an aggravating feature, for example," Sir Mark added.
Scotland Yard is under pressure to investigate whether partygoers lied about the Christmas knees up.
Officers dropped their probe into the do last year after deciding not to issue any fines.
Attendees were given police questionnaires to set out the details of the gathering, but the force announced in November last year “there was insufficient evidence to disprove the version of events provided by attendees to a standard that would meet the threshold required."
It comes as invitations for the gathering, obtained by the BBC, show that it was described as a "Jingle & Mingle Christmas Drinks".
Downing Street said Rishi Sunak will not strip gongs from two Tories who were at the bash.
The Christmas gathering was attended by failed London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and campaign aide Ben Mallet.
It was announced as part of Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list a week ago that the pair will receive a peerage and an OBE respectively.
Families who lost loved ones in the pandemic have called for them to be blocked from getting the gongs.
But the Prime MInister’s spokesman said there were not “any plans” to do this.
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