Thursday 19 May 2022 11:13 PM Force faces a backlash over its costly Partygate inquiry as violent crime ... trends now

Scotland Yard faced a backlash last night over the £460,000 cost of the Partygate probe at a time when it is battling rocketing crime levels.

Helen Ball, Met acting deputy commissioner, declared it worth the money, citing the number of fines issued as evidence the ‘investigation needed to happen’.

After a four-month probe by her force’s ‘Celebrity Squad’, 126 fines have been issued to 83 individuals, some of whom received up to five £50 penalties for attending parties in breach of Covid rules.

Penalties have been handed out by detectives to 48 women and 35 men, including Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie, along with many civil servants working at Downing Street and the Cabinet Office.

But last night critics questioned the significant public spending on the investigation in the face of crime rising 11 per cent in a year.

Susan Hall, Tory chairman of the London Assembly’s police and crime committee, condemned the Partygate probe. She added: ‘This has been an absolutely appalling waste of public money.

‘I think it’s disgraceful, I really do. What a shocking waste of Met police time. Boris was ambushed with a cake at his birthday and it was worth all this?

‘Keir Starmer wanted to get one over on Boris Johnson and the Met were put under terrible pressure to investigate. I accept the parties were wrong and I’m livid about it.

'But when you look at crime levels in London and the rate of sanction detections which are absolutely woeful, they do not give any confidence in the force.

‘The Met has some really serious challenges with knife and gun crime and the rise in rapes and sexual offences, surely officers have better things to do?’

Figures show that in the past year muggings rocketed 89 per cent, rapes increased 24 per cent and other sex offences leapt by 43 per cent compared with 2020-21.

Despite efforts by the Met to tackle murders and knife crime, offences of violence have shot up by 11 per cent, robbery has climbed 7 per cent and vehicle theft is up 14 per cent in London.

Separate analysis by the Daily Mail shows that there were 276,837 other crimes in the capital during the Partygate probe, which is 20 per cent more than the same period in January to April 2021.

In the four months to April, there were 78,236 violent offences, including 31 homicides, 72,398 thefts, 8,176 sex offences, 17,835 burglaries and 8,060 robberies.

Yet only 23,539 crimes of all types were solved in that period, fewer than 9 per cent.

Met figures show that last month alone the overall detection rate was down on last year by 35 per cent, and down 54 per cent for rape.

Sir Charles Walker, the vice-chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 committee, who had suggested a number of times that Mr Johnson should go, said he now believed he had been wrong. He told the BBC’s Newsnight: ‘I don’t know who writes his scripts.

'He is a bit like that all-rounder who has been written off time and time again and then grabs the bowling ball and takes five for 15 or smashes 100 or does both things in the same match.

‘Love him or loathe him, Boris Johnson is an extraordinary politician. Six months ago, four months ago, most people thought he was down and out. I was one of those people. And he rewrote the script.’

In February, Sir Charles was quoted in The Observer as saying: ‘It is an inevitable tragedy. He is a student of Greek and Roman tragedy. It is going to end in him going, so I just want him to have some agency in that.’

The ‘Celebrity Squad’ special inquiry team devoted 12 officers to the Partygate probe examining more than 1,000 pieces of evidence over four months, often working overtime.

When asked whether she thought it was worth the money, Miss Ball replied: ‘I do. I think it was important to investigate in the way that we have.

‘It was important to do it in a really thorough way which we have done and the outcomes I think show that – that investigation needed to happen.’

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: If there’s one lesson from this pitiful farrago, it’s that such a sweeping affront to our liberties must never happen again 

You could almost hear the piteous wails of grief ringing across the newsrooms of the BBC and Guardian. That strangely rhythmic, thudding sound? Could it have been those two mad professors Dominic Cummings and ITV’s Robert Peston banging their heads on their desks in exasperation?

And the high priests of lockdown from SAGE and beyond must have ground their teeth so ferociously that the nation’s dentists should be rubbing their hands with glee.

Our thoughts are with them all at this difficult and distressing time.

For at precisely 10.43am yesterday, the massed ranks of Boris-haters discovered that months of hysteria, hyperbole and confected rage had come to nothing.

The Partygate inquiry was over and it had ended with a whimper rather than the bang they had longed for. Their desperate ploy to unseat the Prime Minister had failed.

After an entirely pointless Scotland Yard investigation, lasting four months, involving 12 detectives and costing an eye-popping £460,000, Boris Johnson received just one paltry fine.

Even that was a travesty. Two months after he almost died from Covid, No 10 colleagues surprised him with a birthday cake between work meetings in the Cabinet room.

Boris was there for

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