A Welsh minister reassured the bereaved daughter of a Covid-19 victim that Plaid Cymru would not roll back on a commitment to hold a pandemic inquiry two months before her party entered government.

In a private message seen by BBC Wales, Heledd Fychan told the campaigner that she had "communicated badly" in an interview in which she had said there would be an investigation instead of a full inquiry.

Welsh culture minister Fychan sent the message while she was an opposition Senedd member to Sam Smith-Higgins, co-chair of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru, in March.

First minister and Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said that there had been no attempt to mislead anyone.

Plaid had supported a Wales-only public inquiry stretching back to the 2021 Senedd election, but switched last March to instead support what the party's then-health spokesperson Mabon ap Gwynfor called a "short, sharp and focused" review.

But after the review was formally announced on Tuesday, Welsh ministers said it would not have legal powers to call witnesses, despite ap Gwynfor - now health minister - previously saying the exercise would be able to compel them to give evidence.

The Covid families group, which had called for a public inquiry in Wales and has already contributed to the UK inquiry, said it would not engage with the review.

Smith-Higgins, whose father died with hospital-acquired Covid-19 in January 2021 aged 73, said her group had been consistently lied to and that she had felt "personally responsible" for misleading families following Plaid's reassurances.

The message sent to her came after BBC Wales interview in March in which Fychan had said Plaid was proposing an investigation and "not a full inquiry" into Wales' response to the pandemic.

The next day, she told Smith-Higgins through a private social media message: "Sorry you've had to spend the day clarifying - I communicated badly the type of inquiry we would be setting up.

"I was trying to explain it wouldn't be something that would last years and be open-ended.

"I know Mabon [ap Gwynfor] and you have worked closely on what's needed and there's no rolling back on that commitment."

At the time, the campaigners were pushing for a probe with the powers of a full public inquiry.

The same day during an exchange on X, Smith-Higgins asked if Plaid was going to "do the dirty" on the campaigners, to which ap Gwynfor said he "wouldn't".

Ap Gwynfor said in the exchange: "The common understanding of a 'public inquiry' leads people to think of a decades long process for hundreds of millions of pounds

"We're proposing a focused inquiry with a clear, concise terms of reference."

At the time, the bereaved families group said it saw "no reason" to think Plaid would "backtrack" on its commitment to hold one.

After Tuesday's announcement of a review, Smith-Higgins told BBC Wales: "They have lied to us consistently from after the election, before the election.

"I basically gave all those assurances to our families. I feel personally responsible for misleading them as well, and that's a lot to carry for one person - I'm angry."

The Welsh government declined to comment on the texts and Smith-Higgins' comments.

Co-lead of the bereaved families group, Catherine Griffiths, also told Radio Wales Breakfast that Fychan had "privately reassured us that it was a matter of semantics".

"She'd just used the wrong word," Griffiths said. "So, earlier this year, they were still promising an inquiry."

Speaking to the BBC Walescast programme, the first minister acknowledged that he had changed his position on the issue.

"There's certainly been no attempt to mislead people," ap Iorwerth said, and that his party "said very, very firmly in the manifesto what we were doing".

"It is a review. We talked about it. Heledd Fychan, I was reading again this week things that she was saying that it wasn't about statutory powers, that it was a review."

He said that while he recognised that the campaigners "are not going to get the model that they were looking for", he had other "bereaved people saying you're doing the right thing here".

Ap Iorwerth said the decision to hold a review had been taken as "a lot of evidence has been gathered by the UK Covid inquiry" which had "done a pretty good job at gathering that evidence".

"What has not happened is for then that evidence and what is on the table and the witness statements and so on to be looked at from a Welsh perspective."

He said where the review identified gaps, it would be able to ask witnesses to come forward.