Emanuel Gomes Wiki
Emanuel Gomes Biography
Who was Emanuel Gomes?
Radio 4 Today show host brought up the tragic death of government cleaner Emanuel Gomes while questioning Boris Johnson’s chief of staff Steve Barclay about Partygate.
Citing a report in political sketch magazine The Critic, it said Mr Gomes had been “instructed to keep coming to work during the lockdown, had contracted covid and died”.
Causes of Death
He later referred to Gomes having worked in Downing Street, where he was “surrounded by people who routinely broke the rules”.
But Mr Gomes had not been working in Downing Street at the time of his death, because he was a cleaner at the Ministry of Justice.
And while colleagues raised concerns that Mr. Gomes had been suffering from Covid-like symptoms prior to his death in April 2020, an official coroner’s report recorded it as hypertension of the heart.
Today, the experienced BBC journalist apologized and described his editorial choice as a “mistake”.
It comes amid concerns, raised in Sue Gray’s report, about how Downing Street employees treated support staff, such as cleaners, during the Partygate period.
Issuing an apology via social networking site Twitter, Robinson wrote: “A correction and an apology: This morning, in an interview with the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, I raised the case, reported in Critic magazine, of ‘ a government cleaner who contracted Covid and died.”
Family
The family was reportedly told he had died of COVID, but the autopsy recorded a different cause of death.
The mistake came during a tough interview with Barclay, who took over as Downing Street Chief of Staff earlier this year, replacing civil servant Dan Rosenfield.
While criticizing the MP for the government’s response to yesterday’s Partgate report by Sue Gray, the BBC presenter made reference to the death of Mr Gomes.
He said: ‘Thanks to a report in The Critic Magazine today, I learned this morning that a government cleaner, who was instructed to keep coming to work during the lockdown, contracted Covid and died.
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Early life and Career
‘His name was Emanuel Gomes. What do you think this family will think, what do you think their friends will think today, when you tell them that the Prime Minister did not know that alcohol was being brought in in industrial quantities so that people could relax after work?
Mr Barclay replied: “All our hearts go out to his family, just as a constituency MP. I have heard so many absolutely heartbreaking stories from my constituents who were unable to attend funerals and who lost loved ones.” And it was an incredibly tense moment…
But the BBC reporter then interrupted, saying: “The point in this case was that this man was instructed to work in Downing Street and was surrounded by people who routinely broke the rules, which he was told to follow.”
‘Is it good enough for you and the Prime Minister to tell him and others who followed the rules, “we really didn’t know what was going on in the building we work in”.
Barclay responded: ‘I think you’re characterizing this as being the norm every day at all times.
“We are talking about a small minority over the course of a two-year period, often times when the prime minister was not in the building. Of course, relative to that specific incident, that’s a heartbreaking case to point to.
“But I think it’s important to point out that there were a lot of staff working in Downing Street, they worked incredibly hard to get our vaccine implemented correctly, getting the PPE fully done.
“I think it would be unfair to suggest that the actions of a very small minority on very specific days reflected a larger effort in terms of making the big right decision on Covid.”
Gomes, who worked as a cleaner at the Justice Ministry, died in April 2020 at the height of the first Covid lockdown.
While most of the officials had been sent home, Gomes and his colleagues were told they should continue to come to the central office of the Ministry of Justice in London.
According to relatives of Mr. Gomes, who is originally from Guinea and has been working for the OCS cleaning company since 2018, he felt pressure to continue working.
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