he Government’s former ethics chief has apologised for attending a karaoke party in the Cabinet Office during lockdown.
Helen MacNamara said she is “sorry for the error of judgment I have shown” after being fined over the partygate scandal.
She added that she has paid the fine, believed to be £50, she was handed over a leaving do held in the Cabinet Office on June 18, 2020 to mark the departure of a private secretary.
Ms MacNamara was the director general of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office from 2018 to 2020.
Her role was to ensure the highest standards of propriety, integrity and governance within government. She left the civil service to work for the Premier League.
Ms MacNamara was among the initial group of people to be issued with an FPN following the Metropolitan Police investigation into Downing Street and Whitehall parties when coronavirus restrictions were in place.
She is the only one so far to confirm they have paid the fine.
She received a fine after police concluded she had broken Covid laws by attending a leaving party for Hannah Young, a Downing Street aide, who was moving to New York to take up a role with the British Consulate General.
Other Downing Street staff who attended a party the night before the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral are among those to have been handed fines, according to The Telegraph.