Scottish ministers are under scrutiny as reports suggest that WhatsApp messages regarding decisions made during the Covid pandemic have been deleted. A lawyer representing the Scottish Covid Bereaved group has called for the publication of these messages to provide the public with an accurate account of events. The lawyer also questions why the messages were deleted and emphasizes the importance of preserving evidence for the ongoing Covid Inquiry.
SCOTTISH ministers have key questions to answer amid reports that WhatsApp messages about decisions taken during the Covid pandemic have been deleted, according to a top lawyer.
Anwar noted that the Covid Inquiry had been told “that 137 WhatsApp groups, up to 70 senior government ministers and senior civil servants, have been involved in not retaining, manually deleting, or in the question of auto-deleting their WhatsApp messages”. Anwar told the BBC’s Sunday Show that there were key questions to answer over the reported deletion of messages.
“So we want to know, first of all, when was the deletion brought in, who ordered it, why was it not ordered to be stopped, and did they continue after the event.”WhatsApp messages from former prime minister Boris Johnson were initially withheld by the UK Cabinet Office, who claimed they only needed to submit relevant messages.Anwar said that the messages released after that court ruling “exposed a culture of impunity, a culture of denial, and total utter chaos at the heart of Number 10”.
“More than 13,000 documents from the official record have been sent to the UK Inquiry from the Scottish Government, in addition to the corporate and personal statements requested. Providing the formal decision-making record has been our priority.
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