Dominic Cummings took 60-mile round trip to Barnard Castle to test his eyesight

Dominic Cummings took an almost 60-mile roundtrip from Durham to Barnard Castle to test whether he was safe to drive to London, the Prime Minister’s special adviser has claimed in a press conference.

Cummings had his wife and four-year-old son in the car for the trip, which he said was not for sightseeing purposes but to check whether his eyesight had recovered after it was affected by coronavirus.

Cummings said a sighting of his by a river was when he stopped the car to recover from a bout of sickness and another sighting of them walking in bluebell woods was because his son needed to pee.

Explaining the trip, Cummings said: “My wife was very worried, particularly because my eyesight seemed to have been affected by the disease.

“She didn't want to risk a nearly 300-mile drive [to London] with our child, given how ill I had been.

“We agreed to go for a short drive to see if I could drive safely.

“I drove for roughly half an hour and we ended up on the outskirts of Barnard Castle town.

“We didn't visit the castle. We didn't walk around the town. We parked by a river.

"My wife and I discussed the situation, we agreed I could drive safely, and we turn around and go home.”

There has been controversy over the whole trip, where the Cummings family drove 260 miles from their home in London to a cottage on Cummings’ parents’ property in Durham after his wife fell ill, despite lockdown rules to stay at home.

But Cummings said he had “no regrets” about his decision and had not offered to resign.