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Lauren Harte

Who is Sue Gray? All you need to know as former NI publican set to release Partygate findings

The highly-anticipated full report from top civil servant Sue Gray is expected to be published this week after Scotland Yard finished its probe into lockdown parties at Downing Street and Whitehall.

Ms Gray, the woman who used to run a pub in Northern Ireland, is now a senior cabinet office employee and currently the most talked-about person in the UK.

She was tasked with investigating breaches of the Covid-19 restrictions at Downing Street, involving parties and gatherings during lockdown.

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At the time, parties were banned and people couldn't see their friends or family and loved ones who were dying alone in hospitals.

Ms Gray took over the inquiry into a string of 'parties' in Whitehall between May 2020 and April 2021 from Cabinet Secretary Simon Case after it emerged a party had been held in his own office.

The probe was set up to get “a general understanding of the nature of the gatherings” - saying who attended, the “setting and the purpose”, and “reference to adherence to the guidance in place at the time”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson avoided receiving further fines from the Metropolitan Police beyond the penalty for his lockdown birthday bash in June 2020 - despite 126 fines being issued in total.

Ms Gray's report is expected to be highly critical of the culture in Downing Street during the pandemic.

It was originally due in January but its publication was put on hold after police decided to open an investigation.

Instead, she published a short interim document where she blasted "failures of leadership and judgement" in No 10.

Ms Gray investigated events on 12 dates, including some that were not included in Scotland Yard's inquiry.

She was not tasked with deciding whether the law was broken - that was the Met's job - but to establish the facts of what happened.

Who is Sue Gray?

The 65-year-old is married to country and western singer Bill Conlon from Co Down and the two ran the Cove Bar outside Newry together during the 1980s.

Gray, who is second permanent secretary at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, was previously director-general of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office from 2012 to 2018, and has been regarded as a figure who will not pull any punches in an inquiry.

Her reputation stems from her time in the Cabinet Office, where she was in charge of leading investigations into the actions of ministers.

One such investigation led to the sacking of Theresa May's former deputy Damian Green, who was accused of inappropriate behaviour towards an activist, which he denied, and of having pornography on his Commons computer.

Gray is also part of the panel deciding on who will be next chair of the media regulator Ofcom.

In 2015, she was dubbed “the most powerful person you’ve never heard of” by BBC Newsnight’s then policy editor Chris Cook.

After her time as head of ethics in the Cabinet Office, she served as the permanent secretary of Northern Ireland's Department of Finance from 2018 to 2021, before taking up her current post.

Gray once held ambitions of becoming head of Northern Ireland's Civil Service. She was one of the shortlisted candidates to succeed David Sterling when he stepped down as head of the NICS in August 2020.

She later told BBC Northern Ireland's The View of her unsuccessful bid : “I really wanted the job, but had to get over it. Why didn't I get the job? I'm not sure I'll ever quite know but I suspect, you know, I suspect people may have thought that I perhaps was too much of a challenger, or a disrupter.”

“Perhaps I would bring about... too much change. And yes, I wanted to have change,” she added.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson (PA Wire/PA Images)

When will her report be published?

Ms Gray is expected to publish her findings within the next few days before Parliament rises for recess on Thursday.

Officials set to be named in the report - including the Prime Minister - were given until Sunday night to lodge any objections.

If challenges are made, this could delay publication of the report.

Ms Gray will hand over the report to Downing Street once it is ready and No 10 has repeatedly vowed to publish it in the form it is received.

The Prime Minister is then expected to give a statement to MPs about the findings.

What will be in it?

Ms Gray interviewed dozens of people and pored over WhatsApp messages, texts, photographs and building logs to establish the facts.

She is expected to provide a narrative of the events, a detailed account of what happened and a conclusion about what the consequences should be.

It is also due to context around the gatherings, including what was said at a Covid press conference that day, what the law was at the time and what other events took place in Downing Street on the day.

It is unclear whether the report will include pictures of the events. Ms Gray handed more than 300 images to the Met Police from her investigation.

Whatever the format, she is likely to be highly critical of the culture in Downing Street.

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