Saturday 25 June 2022 10:45 PM Is Sir Keir Starmer's Beergate gamble about to backfire? trends now
Pressure was last night mounting on Sir Keir Starmer over the ‘Beergate’ probe after The Mail on Sunday obtained details of fines already issued by Durham police over Covid breaches.
Officers have handed out fines for much smaller gatherings than the one attended by Sir Keir and his deputy Angela Rayner last year – and 100 penalties were backdated.
Both Sir Keir and Ms Rayner have promised to resign if they are fined by police for drinking beer in an MP’s office in Durham in April 2021, when a ban on any indoor mixing of households was in place. It was reported that they had made the calculation that the vow was a no-risk gambit because the Durham force had a policy of not issuing fines retrospectively.
The Labour leader made the pledge – and then persuaded a reluctant Ms Rayner to follow suit – after this newspaper published a bombshell internal memo showing that the beer and curry evening had been pre-arranged. Witnesses have estimated that between 15 and 30 people were present. Sir Keir denies that any rules were broken.
Officers have handed out fines for much smaller gatherings than the one attended by Sir Keir and his deputy Angela Rayner last year – and 100 penalties were backdated
Up to 20 people linked to the event are understood to have been sent questionnaires by the police earlier this month, meaning that a decision on fines could come within days.
A source familiar with the event in Labour MP Mary Foy’s office has claimed that the attendees were ‘not working’ and instead were ‘just getting p***ed’.
Durham Constabulary has now released details of its Covid fines showing that 90 of its fixed penalty notices were handed out over a week after breaches of regulations, while a dozen were issued over a month after breaches took place.
A Freedom of Information release shows that in the same month as ‘Beergate’, the force issued fixed penalty notices for relatively minor offences – including six fines for gatherings of just three people and one fine for a meeting of five.
The Freedom of Information release shows that Durham police also issued fines to parents for the behaviour of their children, applying fixed penalty notices in April 2021 to two parents who allowed their children to attend outdoor gatherings of nine to 15 people – even though the parents themselves did not attend.
The police issued three fines in April 2021 for an ‘ongoing house party’ with just three people in attendance.
The police records say: ‘Officers have attended address after reports of an
