British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now the subject of a probe by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) over suspected misconduct in public office.
City Hall said its monitoring officer had recorded a ‘conduct matter’ against the Prime Minister – meaning there is information indicating a criminal offence may have been committed.
But they said this does not mean it has been proven in any way and said the conduct office must decide if an investigation is necessary, metro.co.uk reported.
Boris Johnson and Jennifer Arcuri
The IOPC deals with complaints against police forces in England and Wales. Johnson’s old job as the capital’s Mayor, is the equivalent to being police and crime commissioner for London.
Johnson has denied any wrongdoing and has previously said he will co-operate with any investigation into his links with Ms Arcuri by the assembly.
He has previously refused to comment on allegations he granted thousands of pounds in public funding to the American ex-model as well as privileged access to three of his foreign trade missions.
Ms Arcuri’s company Innotech first received £10,000 in sponsorship from a mayor organisation in 2013, it was reported.
She went on to win a £15,000 grant to encourage foreign entrepreneurs in the UK, before her company Hacker House was awarded a Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport £100,000 cyber-skills grant this year.
In Parliament on 25 September, Matt Warman a junior minister said Johnson had “no role whatsoever” in awarding a grant to Jennifer Arcuri.
Matt Warman said the government has launched a “review” of the £100,000 award made in February this year to Ms Arcuri’s training company Hacker House.
But he insisted it had been an “open, transparent and competitive process”.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Boris Johnson, as Mayor of London, did ‘a huge amount of work’ selling the city to the world and ‘everything was done with propriety and in the normal way’.
