High Court battle over Boris Johnson's Covid WhatsApps

The government's ineligible situation to the Covid inquiry's request to spot Boris Johnson's diaries and WhatsApps successful afloat has begun successful the High Court.

The Cabinet Office rejected the demand, arguing it should not person to manus implicit worldly it does not see relevant.

Covid enquiry seat Baroness Hallett says it should beryllium up to her determine what is relevant.

The authorities took the unprecedented measurement of bringing a judicial reappraisal of Baroness Hallett's order.

It is the archetypal clip a authorities has mounted a ineligible situation to an enquiry it acceptable up itself.

The worldly sought by the enquiry includes WhatsApp messages connected Mr Johnson's devices from a radical chat acceptable up to sermon the pandemic response.

It has besides asked to spot WhatsApp messages helium exchanged with a big of politicians, including his successor Rishi Sunak, arsenic good arsenic assorted civilian servants, including the UK's apical civilian servant Simon Case.

At a High Court proceeding connected Friday, the Cabinet Office's lawyer Sir James Eadie KC said the authorities had brought the lawsuit with "considerable reluctance".

The barrister said that the "broad" request for grounds sought by Baroness Hallett had caught a "substantial magnitude of irrelevant material," including messages of a idiosyncratic quality and worldly irrelevant to the inquiry.

This, helium added, had led to a "real interest astir privateness interests".

The authorities mounting retired the inquiry's powers to request grounds does not supply it with "open-ended discretion," helium argued.

Representing the inquiry, Hugo Keith KC said Baroness Hallett's telephone for documents was "entirely regular" and fell "firmly within" its ineligible powers to request evidence.

Opening his submissions, helium said the powers allowed her to "cast her nett suitably broadly" to guarantee a "thorough investigation".

"Until the bid is made and the worldly is provided, the seat cannot cognize what volition perchance crook retired to beryllium relevant," helium told the court.

Boris Johnson has handed implicit WhatsApp messages, diaries and idiosyncratic notebooks to the Cabinet Office successful unredacted form.

In a connection to the tribunal earlier the hearing, elder civilian servant Ellie Nicholson said the Cabinet Office was reviewing the worldly "for nationalist information sensitivities and unambiguously irrelevant material, and due redactions are being applied".

But the erstwhile PM's WhatsApp messages screen the play lone aft May 2021, meaning they would beryllium of constricted usage to the inquiry, which is looking astatine decisions made during the pandemic.

This was owed to a "well-publicised information breach", wrote Ms Nicholson.

Mr Johnson was forced to alteration his mobile telephone successful 2021 aft it emerged his fig had been publically disposable online for 15 years.

The erstwhile premier curate wrote to the enquiry aft the Cabinet Office launched the judicial review, saying helium was "more than happy" to manus implicit his unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks straight to the inquiry.

He is believed to person written to the Cabinet Office to inquire whether information and method enactment tin beryllium fixed to assistance retrieve the contented connected the instrumentality without compromising security.