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Aide to PM Cummings says he doesn't regret lockdown trip

Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in London

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson's closest adviser Dominic Cummings said on Monday that he didn't regret his decision to drive 250 miles from London to northern England, saying he had not flouted lockdown rules by staying on his family's farm.

"I don't regret what I did. Reasonable people may well disagree about how I thought about what to do in these circumstances. But I think that what I did was actually reasonable in these circumstances," Cummings said, adding that the rules covered exceptional circumstances when it came to issues of looking after small children.

"The situation I was in was exceptional circumstances, and I think the way that I dealt with it was the least-risk to everybody concerned if my wife and I had both been unable to look after our four-year-old."

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon and Elizabeth Piper; writing by Alistair Smout, editing by Paul Sandle)