The police watchdog has been urged to investigate Scotland Yard after Boris Johnson escaped its £460k investigation with just one Partygate fine.
Bombshell photos emerged this afternoon showing the Prime Minister raising a toast and drinking fizz at a No10 party.
At the Commons despatch box he denied such an event took place, and insisted all guidance was followed.
The Liberal Democrats tonight have written to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, urging the watchdog to establish how the Metropolitan Police reached their conclusions of only issuing the PM one fine.
Mr Johnson was fined for attending his own 56th birthday lockdown bash in June 2020.
But the Met issued 126 fines with 53 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) going to 35 men and 73 FPNs handed to 48 women.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Ms Cooper said in her letter to IOPC director general Michael Lockwood: “The Metropolitan Police has so far failed to offer any statement of clarification regarding their decision-making process.
“They have not set out the evidential thresholds which they used to determine whether FPNs should be issued.
“The result of this lack of transparency is that the release of photographs such as that of the Prime Minister drinking in Downing Street, on an occasion for which he was not fined, will likely create considerable public confusion.
“In particular, it is hard to understand why some individuals, in particular more junior members of staff, who attended the same gatherings as the Prime Minister received questionnaires and FPNs, while the Prime Minister did not.”
She urged the IOPC to investigate Operation Hillman “and establish the process by which the Metropolitan Police reached their conclusions on breaches of coronavirus regulations”.
Former Deputy Assistant Commissoner of the Met, Lord Brian Paddick told LBC Scotland Yard "may not have investigated [partygate] as hard as they could have done, because they didn't want to upset No10".
Jo Goodman, Co-Founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said: "Like the rest of the country we struggle to see how these pictures show anything other than the Prime Minister breaking the laws the rest of us lived by. They raise serious questions as to how he has only been issued with a solitary fine.
“Whilst these images do not come as a surprise, they do once again twist the knife into bereaved families wounds.”
