American businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri said she had a 4-year affair with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson

• Jennifer Arcuri has described a four-year affair she had with Boris Johnson, to the Sunday Mirror.
• The relationship took place between 2012 and 2016, she said.
• Johnson, the current UK prime minister, was the Mayor of London at the time.

The American businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri has given intimate details of a passionate four-year affair with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he was London's mayor.

Arcuri, 35, a tech entrepreneur who now lives in the United States, told the Sunday Mirror she had the relationship with Johnson, 56, who was married at the time, between 2012 and 2016.

She said the pair met at an event where he spoke in 2011 while she was a student and again the next year when she volunteered to campaign for him in his 2012 election bid.

They first had sex before he had to rush off to sit with his then-wife, Marina, and Princess Anne at the Paralympics opening ceremony in 2012.

The pair subsequently met regularly at her central London apartment to have sex and exchanged sexual messages, Arcuri said, before the relationship ended in 2016.

"We were in an intimate relationship for four years. I loved him, and with good cause," she told the Sunday Mirror.

Details of a "close friendship" between Arcuri and Johnson were first reported in 2019 when it was revealed that Arcuri had accompanied Johnson on three taxpayer-funded trade missions which he had led.

Arcuri did not confirm the affair had taken place until October last year when she said she was "not going to talk about it."

Arcuri, who set up the tech firm Innotech, also received multiple grants from public bodies, which totaled more than £100,000, including one from an agency set up by Johnson.

Johnson failed to declare the potential conflict of interest despite strict City Hall code of conduct rules.

Accuri told the Sunday Mirror that Johnson was a "cowardly wet noodle" for not standing by her in the row over her presence on foreign trade trips.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said in May last year there was no evidence that Johnson had committed misconduct in public office by failing to declare his relationship with Arcuri.

But it said that a possible "intimate" relationship between the pair could have influenced the decision by officials to send Arcuri on trade missions.

"While there was no evidence that Mr. Johnson influenced the payment of sponsorship monies or participation in trade missions, there was evidence to suggest that those officers making decisions about sponsorship monies and attendance on trade missions thought that there was a close relationship between Mr Johnson and Ms. Arcuri, and this influenced their decision-making," said IOPC's director general Michael Lockwood in a statement in May last year when the decision was announced.

The Greater London Authority is currently investigating whether Johnson breached part of the mayor of London's code of conduct.

Len Duvall, chair of the Greater London Authority committee, which is investigating the claims, told the Sunday Mirror: "Our investigation will consider whether Boris Johnson conducted himself in a way that's expected from anyone in that position.

"It's important we get those answers because Londoners deserve to have their politicians held accountable."