Cyclist’s video does not show Rishi Sunak’s wife using Instagram while driving

A video being shared online claims to show a cyclist catching Akshata Murty, Rishi Sunak’s wife, using Instagram while driving. But the woman in the video is not Ms Murty. 

In the footage, a cyclist asks a driver whether she’d been using Instagram and she appears to nod in response. The cyclist says he will send the footage to the police and adds: “Don’t use your phone alright”. 

The clip has been shared with the caption: “Rishi Sunak wife caught using mobile phone scanning Instagram whilst driving [sic]” and has more than 500 shares on Facebook. Comments on the post indicate many users believe the video does show Ms Murty, including: “Bloody rules for the masses. Whilst the elite do as they like,” and “She don’t care about nothing just like her husband [sic]”. 

However, it is clear from photos of Ms Murty that she is not the woman driving in the video. There have been no reports of Ms Murty committing any such driving offence. 

The clip comes from a longer video that was shared on YouTube in July 2021, without the overlaid text claiming it shows “Rishi Sunak’s wife”, and shows the woman apparently using Instagram behind the wheel. The video was shared by an account that often uploads footage from a helmet camera showing people using their phones at the wheel. 

Full Fact has previously written about other false and misleading claims relating to Ms Murty, including that she lives in Downing Street whilst claiming to live abroad for tax purposes and that the company her father founded, Infosys, is registered in Rwanda, and was subcontracted to work on the UK’s emergency alerts system.