FAMILIES unable to properly mourn their loved ones with relatives or forced to hold drastically scaled back funerals due to strict Covid regulations have spoken of their devastation and anger that the rules weren't being followed by the people who made them in Downing Street.

Jane Manning from Portland died with cancer aged 68 on May 24 2020, just four days after staff at Downing Street were reportedly invited to a garden ‘drinks party’, yet only 10 people could attend the mum-of-three’s funeral due to government restrictions.

Her husband Chris Manning, 72, said: “It makes really angry that when only 10 people could attend my wife’s service, which was not a proper funeral, they were contradicting their own rules.

Dorset Echo: Jane and Chris Manning, picture: Chris Manning

“It upset me that Boris Johnson was just ignoring everything, it felt like he was putting two fingers up at everyone else.

“He needs to be replaced. This is not political, it’s what is right and wrong.

“Jane and I were married 48 years and not once in that time did we ever row. She was irreplaceable, she was perfect, and yet everyone who wanted to say goodbye could not.”

At Mrs Manning’s funeral only 10 people could attend an outdoor service while others looked on from behind a wall, socially distanced - and because not everyone could pay their respects her husband says he has ‘not been able to put proper closure on her death’.

Mr Manning added: "It is not just about Jane but everyone who followed the rules because it’s not fair.

Fellow Dorset resident Jospeh Laidler, from Cattistock in west Dorset died in March 2020 following a second stroke.

There was no funeral held for Mr Laidler because Yeovil Crematorium had ‘totally shut’ due to its small size.

On May 20 his wife Eileen Laidler, 82, marked their 70th anniversary with a lone trip to the hill where he proposed to her because she was not allowed to see anyone else at the time due to government guidance for people deemed most at risk.

Mrs Lailder said: “I could not be with my son or daughter that day when I needed them and to see on that same day there was a ‘party’ makes me angry.

“It feels like they think we are peasants when the rules are good enough for us but not for them and in reality it does not matter because we are all equal.

“It feels like they just disregard everything they have said and I cannot understand why.

“I met Joe through a Dorset Echo pen pal scheme with RAF servicemen and he proposed to me on Eggardon Hill where he told me he would leave the air force to be with me because he could live without that but not me and that is where I went on May 20 - it was a struggle.”

Dorset Echo: Eileen and Jospeh Laidler, picture: Eileen Laidler

Mrs Laidler says not having a funeral was ‘tough’ but was lucky in life and found closure in his last words, ‘Thank you’ - which she titled a book as which is all about his life as a way of dealing with grief.

Downing Street is being put under the microscope after allegedly holding more than a dozen parties and regular "wine time Fridays" during the height of the Covid pandemic.

The revelations that the Prime Minister and senior members of the Government may have partied while they imposed a strict coronavirus lockdown, potentially breaking their own rules, has prompted fury across the UK.

A Whitehall inquiry is being undertaken by civil servant Sue Gray, the results of which are due to be released shortly.