Families who lost loved ones to Covid-19 slammed Matt Hancock as he finally returned to work in the House of Commons today, after his money-spinning turn on I'm A Celeb.
The disgraced MP, who was the Health Secretary between 2018 and 2021, took three weeks off work to go on the ITV show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!
This morning, Mr Hancock was all smiles as he arrived at the Houses of Parliament where just across the River Thames is the Covid memorial, where 200,000 red hearts have been painted to honour those who died of the virus.
Volunteers from the Covid Memorial Wall group, all of whom have been bereaved, travel every Friday to make sure the hearts are repainted when they get weathered, with some travelling from as far away as Stoke in the West Midlands.
Heartbroken relatives and volunteers at the wall this morning have blasted Hancock's actions as "evil" and "sickening".
Lynn Jones lost her "fit and healthy" husband Gareth to Covid in March 2021 and travels from Stoke-on-Trent every Friday to paint the hearts.
She told The Mirror she is furious with Mr Hancock and says what he has done is "evil".
Mrs Jones said: "I wasn't allowed to see Gareth for seven weeks and I imagine myself in all that time on his own.
"And then the person who makes the rules breaks his own rules and says he's in love.
"Well, I love my husband and wasn't allowed to. I wasn't allowed to be with my husband and that is just so evil. How can you ever get over that?
"And then we're here now that Matt Hancock, after making lots of money for himself now is back in Britain, and he is going to Parliament today.
"This man is a former health secretary, he is not a celebrity. He presided over one of the worst Covid deaths in Europe and yet, somehow he is managing to be a celebrity and is going to make money with his book.
"The whole thing is sickening to us, I will never recover from what happened to my husband, my daughters have lost their father. How do we accommodate that, with this celebrity culture?"
Tear-eyed Danielle McMahon came to the wall to celebrate her mum Carol's birthday. She would have been 68 today.
The hairdresser, who also lost an uncle and friend to Covid, said it's "unfair" that Mr Hancock can just carry on.
While waiting for her mum's heart to be repainted, the 42-year-old said: "My mum died a couple of weeks before she was due to be vaccinated.
"We come to freshen up the heart regularly and on special occasions. We try and bring the grandchildren."
Speaking of Mr Hancock, she said: "It's just really unfair that he can just carry on with his life, but we can't.
"I don't know how he can do it. It's disgusting. It's so disrespectful to people like us that he went on I'm A Celebrity."
Fran Hall, the chair of the volunteer group, has been involved since the first hearts were painted in March 2021.
Her partner died of Covid three weeks after they got married in October 2020.
She told the Mirror that what Mr Hancock is doing is "nauseating".
She said: "I found the whole spectacle of him trying to restore his public image, just nauseating. I think he's not a celebrity.
"He's a politician who was in one of the most responsible offices of state, at the most perilous time for the country.
"And for him to then be making money out of his fame, which he only has because he was standing there every night telling us to stay at home, telling us to stay apart from people and telling us we weren't allowed to do things.
"And then all the while, he was breaking his own rules and his own guidelines. It's just sickening. So I just find him a revolting person."
She also hit out at Mr Hancock's excuse of using the I'm A Celebrity platform to raise awareness for dyslexia.
She added: "I've not seen any campaigning. I mean, he had he was in a position of absolute influence as the Secretary of State for Health.
"So he could have done all kinds of things for dyslexia. He was in the position for a couple of years before the pandemic started.
"He's just using everything else as a means of feathering his own nest, paying his divorce bill, setting himself up with the woman that he's moved in with.
"I hope he loses his seat when the next election comes around, and I hope we never have to hear from him."
She says being a part of this group of volunteers is a privilege because they are fighting to keep the memories of those who died alive.
Kirsten Hackman is another volunteer and like Mr Hancock, her daughter was also diagnosed with dyslexia as an adult.
She said: "His rhetoric of 'I'm doing this to raise awareness of dyslexia,' - to the best of my knowledge, he mentioned it twice, and once was him saying that he was struggling to read something himself.
"If he wanted to do something about dyslexia, he could raise it more publicly within the parliament. Reach out to schools. My daughter was diagnosed earlier this year with dyslexia and she's 20. So she has gone through her whole schooling, all her GCSEs and A Levels struggling.
"If you want to raise awareness, go to the schools and actually deal with it rather than going on TV and asking for forgiveness - forgiveness for what? Killing 200,000 people?"
She added: "I think is him trying to further his future career outside of politics.
"I didn't watch the program because frankly, I just can't even look at his face, the way that he acted as the Health Secretay - it's just appalling.
"If a teacher left to go on I'm A Celeb they would have been sacked."
Ms Hackman, who has been coming every Friday for 14 months said: "I lost my mum in the first wave. She had a fall at home and was admitted to the hospital with a fractured pelvis which essentially never came out again.
"Before she went in, she said she didn't want to go because she said she'd catch the virus and die. And she died on May 2, 2020.
"We only had eight people at the funeral and we only had 20 minutes because the room had to then be sanitized for the next people to come in."
She added: "The reason I do this is that it's important to me to make sure that all of these lives are not lost or forgotten - they are a person at the end of the day. They were taken too soon. They have family, they have friends, they have colleagues. And each life loss causes a massive ripple in society to the people that have lost them."
For those who can't make the pilgrimage to London have their messages and tributes written onto the hearts painted by the volunteers.
This morning Baroness Nicky Morgan, who is heading UK Commission on Covid Commemoration, toured the wall to hear from the volunteers who are campaigning to make the memorial permanent.
She wouldn't comment on Mr Hancock returning to parliament.
