Don't be fooled: A statue of Dominic Cummings is not coming to Barnard Castle!
Barnard Castle and Dominic Cummings are trending online once again, but the latest bizarre news of a statue being erected in the town in his honour, is false.
The Telegraph newspaper doctored an image of a bronze sculpture, likened to the Prime Minister's former top advisor and shared the April Fool's joke on its website. The article headlined, "Do my eyes deceive me... or is that a statue of Dominic Cummings", quickly spread across social media platforms in the early hours of this morning.
Associate Editor Gordon Rayner claimed in the piece that the County Durham town planned to unveil the sculpture, after Cummings' infamous trip 'to test his eyesight'. Social media users joked the statue would be paid for by Specsavers.
During the height of the first Covid-19 wave, Mr Cummings admitted driving 30 miles from his parents’ house in Durham, to Barnard Castle. He had left London a fortnight earlier with his wife and son.
Speaking at a special press conference in the rose garden of Downing Street in May, Mr Cummings said his eyesight had been affected by COVID-19 and he wanted to test it, before returning to the capital.
Durham Police concluded they "did not consider" an offence was committed by making the journey.
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