‘I fell in love with somebody’: Matt Hancock says his office affair with aide Gina Coladangelo did NOT break law … because it happened ‘quickly’ after lockdown laws were eased and replaced by guidance
- The 43-year-old quit last June after CCTV images showed with Gina Coladangelo
- Speaking to a business podcast he said the relationship started ‘quite quickly’
- Told The Diary of a CEO podcast it happened after laws replaced by guidance
Former health secretary Matt Hancock has denied he broke the law by having an affair with a close aide during lockdown that destroyed his political career.
The 43-year-old was forced to quit last June after CCTV images showed him in an embrace with his married lover Gina Coladangelo, 44, inside the Department of Health during the height of the pandemic.
But speaking to a business podcast he said the relationship started ‘quite quickly’ after legal social distancing curbs were lifted and replaced by guidance.
Speaking to The Diary of a CEO podcast, released this morning, Mr Hancock said he ‘fell in love’ with Coladangelo after bringing her in to work with him.
He told the podcast host, entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den investor Steven Bartlett: ‘It actually happened after the rules were lifted, but the guidance was still in place. I resigned because I broke the social distancing guidelines by then.
‘They weren’t actually rules. They weren’t the law. But that’s not the point.
‘The point is they were the guidelines that I’d been proposing. And that happened because I fell in love with somebody.’
People had to stay two metres apart from anyone outside their household or bubble, under the guidance at the time.
Speaking to a business podcast he said the relationship started ‘quite quickly’ after legal social distancing curbs were lifted and replaced by guidance.
The 43-year-old was forced to quit last June after CCTV images showed him in an embrace with his married lover Gina Coladangelo, 44, inside the Department of Health during the height of the pandemic.
Speaking to the The Diary of a CEO podcast, released this morning, Mr Hancock said he ‘fell in love’ with Coladangelo after bringing her in to work with him.
Mr Bartlett, who appears on the Dragen’s Den show as an investor, said on Twitter that Mr Hancock and Gina Coladangelo had ‘stopped by’ for a chat
The host said the interview was ‘a little heated’ but Mr Hancock ‘did answer all of the tough questions I asked him and nothing will be edited out’
Mr Hancock stressed that his relationship with Miss Coladangelo was serious.
He added: ‘I haven’t had casual sex with anybody. I fell in love with somebody.’ Mr Hancock went on to say that he hated that some had ‘got the impression somehow that this was [casual sex]’.
The father-of-three expressed his regret at the pain that the affair had caused after it triggered the breakdown of his 15-year marriage to wife Martha to be with Miss Coladangelo – who was also married with three children.
He added that he had known Miss Coladangelo for ‘more than half of my life’ since first working together on the student radio at Oxford University.
Mr Hancock found himself in hot water in January this year after stripping off for a bracing winter swim in Hyde Park’s Serpentine lake
She was brought by him into the health department for help with ‘public communications’.
Mr Hancock said: ‘We spent a lot of time together, ironically, trying to get me to be able to communicate in a more emotionally intelligent way.
‘And we fell in love. And that’s something that was completely outside of my control.’
He also admitted the Government knew some measures it took during the pandemic were ‘very damaging’.
The couple have been seen in public together a handful of times since the affair was revealed, including on romantic getaways in Split, Croatia, and in the Swiss Alps last year.
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