Ian Blackford makes formal call for Dominic Cummings probe

In a letter to Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill, the country’s most senior civil servant, Ian Blackford urges him to reconsider his “initial reluctance to get involved in the matter”.

He says the confirmation from Durham Police that Cummings breached regulations – as well as the Prime Minister’s chief adviser’s own public admission that he broke UK Government guidance – clearly falls foul of the Government’s own codes of conduct for special advisers.

SNP Westminster leader Blackford writes: “There appears to be mounting and clear evidence to suggest that Mr Cummings, having presumably been centrally involved in the formulation of Covid-19 lockdown rules, may have used this privileged information to further his own ‘private interests’ and that he ignored ‘inconvenient facts’.

“There can be no doubt that these matters urgently require investigation and I believe your office must conduct that investigation swiftly.”

Blackford says the Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “repeated failure to act casts a serious and damning verdict on his judgment”. He adds: “With the Prime Minister failing to act, the responsibility now falls on other senior figures within the government system – particularly those tasked with independent judgment – to take action, retrieve some public trust and restore accountability.”

The letter comes as two more witnesses claim they saw Cummings out and about in Barnard Castle, contradicting the Prime Minister’s adviser’s previous claims.

At least three people have now come forward to say they saw Cummings at the beauty spot on Easter Sunday. The Tory Government’s policy guru claimed he drove 30 miles from the farm in Durham where he had been staying to Barnard Castle to test his eyesight.

READ MORE: This is why Dominic Cummings' blog is the ‘tell’ of the man

At last week’s spectacular press conference, Cummings said: “We walked about 10 to 15 metres from the car to the river bank nearby. We sat there for about 15 minutes. We had no interactions with anybody,” Cummings said. “We did not walk around the town,” he added.

However, retired council worker Rosalind told the Sunday Times that she saw the former Vote Leave chief “around lunchtime” in Market Place — a street of shops and Barnard Castle’s main thoroughfare. The 60-year-old, who has given a “lengthy” witness statement to police, said Cummings was with a “group of people”.

Another witness, retired engineer Alan Gowland, told the paper he walked past the PM’s aide on a walkway that runs alongside the River Tees and down towards Barnard Castle weir.

“I am 100% certain it was him,” Gowland said. “I have a friend who looks a bit like Cummings. At first I thought it was him. I didn’t have my glasses on and I saw him coming and thought it was Richard.

“I put my glasses on and as we walked past each other I thought, ‘I recognise this guy.’ His wife and child were behind him on the path. And he was walking ahead.”

He added that Cummings nodded as he passed.

“He behaved responsibly,” Gowland said. “I have no criticism of that. And I wouldn’t like to see him lose his job, either. I watched him on TV during his press conference on Monday. I thought to myself — ‘he’s a clever man’. He’s like Paul Newman in that film, Cool Hand Luke. Calm as anything.”

However, another witness who claimed Cummings made a second trip north after he had returned to London, admitted he “modified” his statement for a “little bit of comedy value”.

Tim Matthews, a keen runner, was reported in two newspapers as having spotted Cummings on the afternoon of April 19 – five days after the chief adviser made the 260-mile trip back to Downing Street.

Matthews posted a message that read: “Here’s my two potential sightings [at] Riverbanks and Houghall Woods – I’ve been banging on about them ever since.”

He has since admitted changing the details on the Strava app to make it look as if he had seen Cummings on April 19.

He told the Mail on Sunday: “I’m sorry. A bit of comedy value even if it was really inappropriate.”