Excessive Courtroom orders search of emails & WhatsApp messages of ex-Well being Secretary Matt Hancock in Covid testing contracts case

The emails and WhatsApp messages of former British Well being Secretary Matt Hancock might be searched, the Excessive Courtroom has dominated amid a court docket battle over the allegedly illegal awarding of multi-million-pound Covid testing contracts.

The search was ordered by the Excessive Courtroom on Tuesday throughout hearings of the case, introduced by the Good Legislation Undertaking group in opposition to the Division of Well being and Social Care (DHSC).

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The case revolves round three Covid-19 antibody take a look at contracts, price greater than £80 million, which have been awarded to Abingdon Well being. The contracts have been allegedly given to the corporate in April, June and August 2020 respectively, however weren’t correctly revealed till October that 12 months.

“The contracts have been awarded immediately, and secretly, with none commercial or competitors,” the barrister for the Good Legislation Undertaking, Joseph Barrett, said.

Hancock, who served because the UK’s well being secretary from July 2018 till his resignation over an extramarital affair scandal this June, was the “final decision-maker” in awarding stated contracts, the plaintiffs argued. The previous official allegedly used a number of non-government emails for state enterprise, Barrett claimed, asking the court docket to warrant searches.

The allegations have been rejected by the DHSC authorized crew, which countered that Hancock had solely a “restricted” function in awarding the contracts. It additionally argued that the already-disclosed paperwork have been enough for the case.

“There isn’t a cheap foundation on which to hunt such disclosure, as a result of Mr. Hancock’s involvement within the issues that are in concern in these proceedings was restricted and, in any occasion, any communications from the then-secretary of state would have been caught by the prevailing disclosure train,” QC Philip Moser said.

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The court docket, nonetheless, accepted the Good Legislation Undertaking’s arguments, ordering searches of Hancock’s personal emails and WhatsApp messages. The court docket additionally appeared unconvinced by the argument that the ex-secretary’s say within the contract-awarding course of was “restricted” sufficient to be disregarded totally.

“It appears to me that despite the fact that his involvement has been described as ‘restricted’, ‘restricted’ can nonetheless be fairly important,” the choose stated.

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