Boris Johnson grilled over 5,000 missing WhatsApps
Boris Johnson tells the Covid Inquiry "I don't know the exact reason" his phone was missing "5,000 or so WhatsApps". The inquiry's counsel lead Hugo Keith KC asks the former prime minister whether he carried out a "factory reset" on the phone, to which Mr Johnson replies "I don't remember any such thing". Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 I just ask you please to confirm what your approach has been to the disclosure of your own
00:05 COVID related emails, WhatsApps and notes. I've done my best to give everything of any
00:13 conceivable relevance. Has that always been your position Mr Johnson? Yes. Could we have 265 619
00:22 please, page 68. This is a WhatsApp between your former permanent secretary number 10 and then
00:35 latterly cabinet secretary and your principal private secretary Simon Case and respectively
00:41 Martin Reynolds. And the cabinet secretary said the prime minister is mad if he doesn't think his
00:46 WhatsApps will become public via the COVID inquiry. He was clearly not in the mood for that discussion
00:53 tonight. I don't remember that the conversation to which the cabinet secretary is referring and
01:01 I've handed over all the relevant WhatsApps. Do you know why your phone was missing those
01:08 5000 odd WhatsApps? I don't know the exact reason but it looks as though it's something to do with
01:15 the app going down and then coming up again but somehow not automatically erasing all the things
01:31 between that date when it went down and the moment when it was last backed up. So I can't
01:42 give you the technical explanation but that's the best I'm able to give. The technical report that
01:47 your solicitor has kindly provided demonstrates that there may have been a factory reset of the
01:53 phone at the end of January 2020 and then an attempt to reinstall the contents later in June
01:59 2020. May I just ask you this, was it you if that was a factory reset that was done, was it you that
02:06 tried to reset the phone or not? A factory reset? There was a device or a capability on the phone
02:13 which allows its contents to be entirely reset. That wasn't you. I don't remember any such thing.