'Broken' woman who watched dying mum sob on FaceTime hits out at Boris Johnson

Jane Smith (left) says she will "never be the same" after watching her mother deteriorate over video calls

People in the West Country who say their life will "never be the same" after lockdown have hit out at the Prime Minister in spite of his "wholehearted apology" for breaking Covid rules.

Boris Johnson addressed the House of Commons this afternoon (Tuesday 19 April), repeating his apology after being fined by police for breaking coronavirus rules.

He said "it did not occur" to him that "a gathering in the cabinet room just before a vital meeting on Covid strategy could amount to a brach of the rules".

Jane Smith, from Thornbury, could not visit her mother Rita in a care home for months during the pandemic.

Instead she watched her deteriorate through 20-minute video calls every two weeks before she died in May last year.

"It would have been my mum's 96th birthday yesterday," she told ITV News West Country.

Jane previously shared a recording one heartbreaking lockdown call to dying mother, in which she sobbed over Skype.

"That [call] will never leave me," Jane said. "My life will never be the same again. 

"I am broken with what happened to her and it's happening to so many others. Why is it a different rule for him and for others?"

  • Jane Smith speaks to ITV News West Country

Last week the Prime Minister and Chancellor Rishi Sunak paid their £50 fines for breaking lockdown rules in June 2020 but both refused to resign.

Roger Bourgein, Exmouth's town crier, was the first Covid patient at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in 2020. He nearly died from the virus.

He says has always voted for the Conservative Party but he is "ashamed" of Boris Johnson and other MPs who keep him in post.

  • The RD&E's first Covid patient speaks to ITV News

Roger said: "He cheats. He lies. It does not tell the truth. I know he's a politician and I shouldn't expect better, but I'm sorry, I do.

"That's not who I want to lead our country and I'm angry. He has deceived us. He is deceiving us. And no amount of. Glad handing. Well done, Roger. Well, you're a good chap. Will ever cure me of this feeling of having been deceived."

Reacting to the Prime Minister's speech to MPs, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said it was a “mealy-mouthed apology" and accused the PM of being "dishonest and incapable of changing".

There will be a vote on Thursday debating whether MPs believe the PM misled them.

If they decide he has, it will trigger a Commons investigation.