One of the men criticised for apparently accosting the UK’s chief medical adviser Chris Whitty has apologised, claiming that the social media video of the incident has cost him his job. “To be honest I just wanted a selfie with Chris Whitty to show my mum,” Lewis Hughes told The Sun newspaper. “There was no malicious intent, I didn’t want to upset him.” Whitty became a household name during the early period of the pandemic when he regularly appeared alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson giving televised briefings and fielding questions on the scientific advice behind the UK government’s pandemic response. Footage from June 27 in St. James’s Park, London, shows two men jeering as they grab hold of Whitty, who appears to struggle to free himself. At one point one of them can be heard saying, “One photo please?” The police said that they had recorded the incident as common assault, but …