THE FORMER chief of Police Scotland has defended the Met's investigation of partygate.

Sir Stephen House, who is now the acting Commissioner of Scotland Yard, was being questioned about the saga at the London Assembly today.

Asked about how the force handled the probe and decided who should be fined, he said: “I believe that the decisions that my officers made were based on the facts and were proper”, adding: “We looked at whether there was a prescribed exemption under the regulations of the gathering, including whether it was reasonably necessary for work purposes.

“And that’s an important point – some gatherings we decided were not work-related, and some we decided were work-related.”

Sir Stephen said there were “full files of evidence” behind each fixed penalty notice so that if the fine was contested in court there would be a realistic prospect of conviction.

He told the committee the Met was not deterred by the prospect of Mr Johnson potentially having to resign if he were fined more than once.

He said: “I was involved in these decision-makings myself, I am very confident of the integrity of the decisions that were made in this investigation, which was a difficult investigation.”

Sir Stephen added: “I’m not particularly concerned about what the Prime Minister thinks, I do my job without fear or favour.”

The acting Met Commissioner was then questioned about one officer who saw “a large number of people” outside the Downing Street press office during an event on December 18 2020 but did not challenge them.

Sir Stephen said: “The officers’ roles there are ones of security and safety. They’re there to protect the perimeter.

“They’re not there to police what goes on inside the building.

“And I don’t believe that the officer that we’re talking about felt that they were seeing something that necessarily breached coronavirus regulations.”

The Acting Metropolitan Police commissioner also faced questions on how the force decided who should be fined for the November 13 2020 party at Number 10 amid lockdown restrictions.

Pictures published in Sue Gray’s report include an image of Boris Johnson raising a glass of wine at the leaving do for his former spin doctor Lee Cain.

Sir Stephen told the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee the Met did issue fines for the event but refused to confirm that the Prime Minister did not receive a fine, saying the force had a policy not to name those it issues with fixed penalty notices.

Setting out how the Metropolitan Police carried out its investigation, he said officers examined “every case”, looking at “hundreds of documents, including emails, electronic door logs, diary entries, witness statements, photographs, CCTV images, and we sent questionnaires to people who we felt may have breached legislation”.

They looked at “each individual’s activity” at each event, how long it lasted and the amount of time they spent there, he added.

Committee member Caroline Russell put it to Sir Stephen that the event on December 18 2020 “looks and smells like a party”.

Staff in other parts of Downing Street reported hearing “significant levels of noise”, and red wine was found spilled on a wall and boxes of paper the next morning.

He said: “One of the things we had to decide was, is this gathering, is this event, work-related or not work-related. And that was an important question asked.

“I think it’s impossible to expect an officer walking through a room with a lot of people in it to work out whether or not these people are breaching coronavirus regulations, when it’s taken a team of 12 experienced detectives many, many weeks to do the same thing.”

The acting Met Commissioner said that the key legal question was whether the person had a reasonable excuse to be at an event, not the number of people there.

Sir Stephen remained bullish in his defence of the Met police investigation.

“I accept that many of the photographs that we are seeing look bad and Sue Gray’s report has dealt with that,” he said.

“We deal with the law, not what looks bad. And just because there is alcohol present, can I just remind people that the Covid regulations are about breaching Covid regulations, they’re not about whether there’s drink there or not.

“We have to put fixed penalty notices to people that we think will win in court. And there has to be evidence behind it and there is not always evidence and… a photograph can be somewhat deceptive in these areas.

“We need evidence and they need to be proving there is no reasonable excuse behind what was going on.

“We have not, I repeat this, we have not shied away from issuing a fixed penalty notice where we thought it was deserved.

“We have policed without fear or favour and I would not have presided over anything less than that.”