Coronavirus: Dominic Cummings says ‘I don’t regret what I did’ after calls to resign over lockdown trips

Dominic Cummings says he does not “regret” his actions during lockdown – as he admitted for the first time making a third trip while Britons were being told to “stay at home”.

In an unprecedented news conference outside Downing Street, the prime minister’s special adviser confirmed he, his wife and young child travelled from London to Durham.

After staying at his parents’ farm, 15 days after developing COVID-19 symptoms, the three of them went for a “test drive” to Barnard Castle – 30 minutes away – to check he was well enough to drive home.

“My wife was very worried, particularly as my eyesight seemed to have been affected by the disease,” he recalled.

“She did not want to risk a nearly 300-mile drive with our child given how ill I had been.”

He said a passer-by spotted them but none of the family went near them and he followed social distancing measures.

Mr Cummings added he was in “exceptional circumstances” for having to seek childcare arrangements in case he and his wife were incapacitated, so they decamped 260 miles from London to Durham at the end of March.

“I don’t regret what I did,” he insisted, speaking from the rose garden outside the back of Number 10. “I was trying to balance all of these very complicated things.”

Mr Cummings claimed he “wasn’t looking for loopholes” in the rules to justify his multiple trips, adding: “It’s not a simple matter of regulations… It doesn’t say you should stay at home in all circumstances.”

He confirmed he did not seek the prime minister’s permission in advance because Mr Johnson “had a million things on his plate” but they discussed it “in the week after it happened”.

“I can’t go to him all day asking what do you think about this… maybe I should have done,” he told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby.

Mr Cummings said he could not have remained in the isolated cottage in Durham for weeks afterwards because he was part of vital work in Downing Street to combat the coronavirus pandemic and needed to “relieve the intense strain at Number 10”.

He confirmed he has “not considered” offering to resign despite calls to do so by 20 Tory MPs, an NHS nurse and bishops.

But when asked if these explanations should have been given at the time or when media reports first surfaced, he said: “In retrospect, I think it would have been better to set this out earlier.”

Mr Cummings also for the first time denied flatly reports he was spotted again visiting Durham a week after he went back to London, saying: “Photos and data on my phone prove this to be false, I was in London on that day.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will likely face more questions about the lockdown trips when he fronts the daily Downing Street coronavirus briefing at 6:30pm.

His chief advisers from the science and medical sides, Prof Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, will also join him for the news conference.

(c) Sky News 2020: Coronavirus: Dominic Cummings says ‘I don’t regret what I did’ after calls to resign over lockdown trips