SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 5 December 2024, Thursday |

UK PM Sunak gets fined by police for failing to wear seat belt

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was fined by British police on Friday for making a social media footage while riding in the backseat of a car without fastening his seatbelt, which might be embarrassing for him as he attempts to turn around the fortunes of his party.

Without using a seat belt, Sunak, who apologized on Thursday for what he called a “short lapse of judgement,” recorded a video in the backseat of his car while driving across the northern part of England.

It is the second penalty Sunak has received from police after last year they found him to have broken COVID-19 lockdown rules, along with then-prime minister Boris Johnson.

The fine represents a new challenge for Sunak, whose Conservative Party trails far behind the opposition Labour Party in the opinion polls, ahead of an election due by January 2025 at the latest.

“The prime minister fully accepts this was a mistake and has apologised. He will of course comply with the fixed penalty,” a spokesman from Sunak’s Downing Street office said in a statement.

Police in the northern English county of Lancashire confirmed that they had issued a 42-year-old man from London with a penalty notice.

Sunak becomes the second prime minister after Johnson to have been fined in such a manner.

    Source:
  • Reuters