GINA Coladangelo is to leave the Department of Health after her affair with Matt Hancock was revealed.
Trending In The News’s world-exclusive images of former Health Secretary Hancock in a passionate clinch with 43-year-old aide Coladangelo led him to announce he was stepping down.
Follow our Matt Hancock live blog for all the latest updates on his affair
Hancock had appointed Coladangelo as a non-executive director at the department in September, meaning that she was a member of the board that oversees the department.
In November it emerged he had quietly given her a job as an adviser before handing her a £15,000-a-year role in his department.
The pair became friends at Oxford and have worked closely ever since, including on his short lived attempt to become Tory leader in 2019.
Hancock faced mounting pressure to quit after being filmed in a passionate embrace when Covid social distancing rules forbade such contact.
Soon after he went, the BBC reported that Coladangelo was also quitting.
Caving to pressure to quit over the affair, Hancock wrote a resignation letter to the PM, saying: “I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance, and apologise to my family and loved ones for putting them through this.
“I also need to be with my children at this time.”
It comes as…
- Matt Hancock announced he was resigning almost 48 hours after his affair with his aide was exposed
- The Health Secretary told his wife he was leaving her as the affair was revealed
- Gina Coladangelo has left her position on the Department of Health board after the affair with Hancock
- Read Matt Hancock’s resignation letter in full
- Boris Johnson told Hancock ‘you should be proud of what you’ve achieved’ as he accepted his resignation
He admitted he had “let down” the millions who had made sacrifices during the pandemic after he was caught on film kissing Coladangelo.
According to Trending In The Newsday Times, Hancock’s wife Martha had no idea her husband was having an affair until he broke the news and announced that their marriage was over.
He then delivered the bombshell news to Martha, who believed that their marriage had until that moment been “happy and stable”.
Hancock even woke up the couple’s youngest child, aged eight, to break the news he was leaving.
Hancock’s allies have said the politician and Coladangelo are “love match” and are planning to set up home together.
Friends of the former Health Secretary say his relationship with Coladangelo is “recent but serious”, Sky News reports.
A Downing Street source said: “Boris accepted the resignation reluctantly. This was very much Matt’s decision.”
Coladangelo herself was pictured packing her bags into a car the night her affair was exposed.
Their friendship was once again in the spotlight when it emerged she had been handed a parliamentary pass, giving her unregulated access to the Palace of Westminster.
Coladangelo was able to accompany Hancock to confidential meetings with civil servants and visit No10.
A source said: “Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Coladangelo. She knows everything.”
Like Hancock, she studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Oxford’s Exeter College between 1995 and 1998.
Friends say the pair were “inseparable” while working together on the university’s student radio station Oxygen FM.
Coladangelo had a role as a news reporter while Hancock was on sport, leading to teasing.
Years later, when Hancock appointed Coladangelo as his unpaid adviser, she was described as his “closest friend” at Oxford.
She joined lobbying firm Luther Pendragon in 2002, and her career was also firmly on the rise.
In 2009, she married for a second time, to Oliver Bonas tycoon Oliver Tress, now 54.
The couple live in a £4million townhouse in Wandsworth, South West London, with their three kids and Coladangelo joined her second husband’s firm as head of marketing.
By now she was also a director of Luther Pendragon, which promises clients a “deep understanding of the mechanics of government”, as well as a major shareholder.
