Leaked WhatsApp messages have revealed that Matt Hancock took his lover, Gina Coladangelo, to private dinners with the US Secretary of State at a G7 summit before removing any suggestion he invited her.
The Health Secretary brought Coladangelo, who he had been seeing for a month, to two private dinners with his US counterpart at the University of Oxford.
The changes to the official ministerial response to a question asked by Labour MP Ben Bradshaw in Parliament were made after interference from Hancock and his former political advisor Allan Nixon.
The original response from the Department of Health said: “Gina Coladangelo attended the G7 Health Ministers’ Meeting at the request of the previous Secretary of State, for the Department of Health and Social Care.”
Nixon sent a copy of the response to Hancock in which he appeared to have crossed this out, instead writing Coladangelo “played an advisory role to the Secretary of State at the G7 meeting.”
Ms Coladangelo, who is an old university friend of Mr Hancock, was appointed to the position of non-executive director in the department in September 2020. She resigned shortly after details of the affair were published.
By the time the response was published on October 28, 2021, more than three months after the question was asked, all references to Hancock and the DHSC had been removed entirely.
The answer said: “Ms Coladangelo attended the G7 Health Minister’s meeting as a part of the UK delegation. All travel and subsistence costs were covered as part of the Department’s overall booking. Ms Coladangelo did not claim any additional expenses.”
Earlier messages revealed the couple’s reaction to their affair becoming public knowledge, including CCTV images of Hancock and Coladangelo in an intimate embrace.
As the news of his affair broke, Hancock asked the Department of Health’s media advisor Damon Poole “how bad” the pictures were, to which Mr Poole said: “It’s a snog and heavy petting.”
Hancock split from his wife as the news of the affair broke, leaving his family home and his children to stay elsewhere. He has since been pictured on many occasions with his girlfriend, most prominently on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here when Ms Coladangelo flew to Australia to meet him as he came out of the jungle.
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