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Johnson’s old flame offers to retrieve his ‘lost’ WhatsApp messages

Jennifer Arcuri has offered up a team to retrieve Boris Johnson’s lost WhatsApp messages, saying it wouldn’t be hard to retrieve the data.

The former PM has denied deleting messages after it emerged that he has not been able to provide the Covid-19 inquiry with any communications from February to June 2020.

It comes after the Times newspaper reported that Johnson has told Lady Hallet’s probe that technical experts have not been able to retrieve WhatsApp messages between January 31 and June 7 – a time period spanning the early days of the pandemic and most of the first lockdown.

Technical experts had been trying to recover messages from his old mobile phone in order to hand them over to the inquiry. Mr Johnson was originally told to stop using the device over security concerns after it emerged his number had been online for years.

He then reportedly forgot the passcode. But it had been reported that technical experts had succeeded in helping Mr Johnson recover the messages for the inquiry.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Arcuri – who recently admitted to having a four year affair with Boris Johnson – said she would happily provide a team to retrieve the messages, saying it wouldn’t be hard to do.

Arcuri, who describes herself as an “ethical hacker”, founded the white hat consultancy Hacker House in 2016 and organised the Innotech Network from 2012.

She had a close friendship with then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson, with The Sunday Times describing him as a regular visitor to her flat.

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Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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