A nanny claims she was sacked by Boris Johnson’s wife just three days into her job – after joining the ex-PM for a glass of wine.
Theresa Dawes, 59, says Carrie Johnson gave her 15 minutes to pack her bags and leave.
Theresa, from Zimbabwe, says she is owed thousands. She adds: ‘It’s been a complete nightmare.’
The glamorous divorcee says the axe fell 36 hours after she enjoyed a single chilled rosé with the ex-PM to ‘wet the head’ of baby Frank Alfred Odysseus.
Carrie was still recovering in hospital – but, says Theresa, dismissed her when she returned home.
She says that after getting the sack, apologetic Boris told her Carrie was ‘hormonal… it’s out of my control’.
Now Theresa says she is considering legal action to get thousands of pounds she says she is owed for an agreed three-month contract – plus severance pay.
The Johnsons deny Theresa’s claims. Boris has earned millions from speaking engagements since leaving No10 last year and as an ex-PM is entitled to an annual allowance of £115,000.
Theresa, 59, insisted nothing flirty happened with the ladies’ man – and their conversation didn’t stray beyond the politics of her native Zimbabwe.
She said: ‘I know he’s had three wives, however many kids. But I’m not interested, he’s not my type. I don’t know if she felt threatened. I don’t know what she was thinking.
‘I was looking forward to helping out a family with their new arrival but I got caught in the middle of something else.
‘I’d only been there for three days and I didn’t even get to hold the baby. I wish I’d never got involved with them, it’s been a complete nightmare. To be fair, it was quite a nice rosé but it definitely wasn’t worth it.’
Theresa says the only time she could have put a foot wrong was when she met Carrie two weeks earlier and mentioned that a former employer had celebrated Boris’s demise in the Partygate scandal.
But she believes the real reason she got sacked was that Carrie’s mum Josephine witnessed the tipple with Boris.
Mum-of-two Theresa flew almost 8,000 miles from her home in Harare to take up the post at Brightwell Manor, the Johnsons’ mansion in Oxfordshire.
She secured the job via an agency after a call with Carrie. Theresa said: ‘When she interviewed me her name came up on WhatsApp as Carrie Symonds. The agency told me they didn’t want anyone to know beforehand who they were. I asked was I getting myself in trouble working for Boris Johnson but they told me he was a lovely man.’
Theresa came to the UK in June and worked in a couple of other short-term roles. On June 22, she met the Johnsons at their home.
She said: ‘It’s a lovely house but needs work. Carrie chatted about how they planned to do it up and a pool was being installed. I thought we got on really well. Boris wasn’t there long.
‘I told them about another family I worked for. I said they didn’t like Boris because of Partygate and that they had celebrated when he stood down as an MP.
‘Carrie didn’t say anything. When I left I thought they seemed like a really nice, down-to-earth family.’
Carrie had Frank, the couple’s third child, on July 5 – and Theresa arrived to start work two days later.
A spokesman for the Johnson family said: ‘This account is totally untrue. It is disappointing to see someone who sought a position of trust abuse it to create a completely false story for financial gain.’
The agency did not respond to requests for comment.
Boris quit as an MP in June after an inquiry found he had misled parliament over lockdown parties in Downing Street.
This is not the first wine-fuelled drama for the Johnsons.
In 2019, police were called to Carrie’s South London flat after neighbours heard a loud altercation in which she is said to have accused Boris of ruining a sofa with red wine.
