Sir Keir Starmer will have "questions to answer" about the Crown Prosecution Service's failures over the grooming gangs scandal when he was the Director of Public Prosecutions, a shadow Cabinet minister has said.
Chris Philp, the shadow Home Secretary, said Starmer might be nervous over what an inquiry might uncover because that CPS had "early on" made some mistakes over prosecuting alleged perpetrators.
Starmer was in charge of the CPS as the chief prosecutor in England and Wales between 2008 and 2014 during a period when failures by the CPS over the grooming gangs scandal were highlighted in previous reports.
One 173-page review, covering from 2004 to 2013 and setting out multiple failed investigations by Greater Manchester Police, found that one victim was treated as a co-conspirator by the CPS for “procuring children on behalf of the men who were abusing her” because she was “viewed as critical in their successful prosecution”.
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|Sir Keir Starmer will have "questions to answer" about the Crown Prosecution Service's failures over the grooming gangs scandal when he was the Director of Public Prosecutions, a shadow Cabinet minister has said
In February 2011, the CPS formally agreed she never should have been arrested in 2009.
In a separate incident the CPS dropped an investigation into two Asian men accused of the rape of a young female victim in July 2009 on the grounds that she was not reliable or credible.
The victim even provided police with her underwear, which carried traces of one of her attacker’s DNA.
Asked if Starmer might be "nervous" about his record as DPP during the time of some of these failures, Philp told today's Chopper's Political Podcast: "I think he might be. I think he's certainly nervous about Labour councils, which actively covered this up, and the Crown Prosecution Service particularly early on and did make some mistakes."
Citing both of these cases, Philp said that both the CPS and Starmer "do have questions to answer... because the CPS, particularly in those early years didn't respond adequately at all, just like the police and local authorities didn't either".
Starmer later chaired a review into the CPS’s handling of the Rochdale case and also ordered a national analysis of all child sexual exploitation cases across the country.
Speaking in 2012, he said: “In a number of cases presented to us, particularly in cases involving groups, there’s clearly an issue of ethnicity that has to be understood and addressed.
“As prosecutors, we shouldn’t shy away from that. But if we’re honest, it’s the approach to the victims, the credibility issue, that caused these cases not to be prosecuted in the past. There was a lack of understanding.”
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|Chris Philp said Keir Starmer might be nervous over what an inquiry might uncover because that CPS had 'early on' made some mistakes over prosecuting alleged perpetrators
On the podcast Philp renewed his criticism of Starmer for initially stating in January that those calling for a national inquiry into the scandal were on a far right bandwagon.
He said: "It is not a far right bandwagon to stand up for young girls who were systematically groomed and raped by gangs of predominantly Pakistani heritage men."
A Labour spokesman accused Philp of doing nothing to help the victims of grooming gangs when he was a Home Office minister.
She said: “As the country’s chief prosecutor, Keir Starmer changed the criminal justice to better support victims of grooming gangs. When Chris Philp had the chance, he did nothing.
"Keir Starmer gave victims new rights and forced prosecutors to take their claims seriously. Compare that to Chris Philp’s record as the Minister for Policing and Crime in the two years in the run up to the election.
"Not a mention of the issue of grooming gangs in any of his speeches in the House of Commons; no meeting with any external individual or organisation to discuss the issue of grooming gangs: not one victim; not one expert on sexual abuse; not one local authority; not one local police force.
"This Labour government is taking the strongest action any government has taken to tackle grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation in our country - a new national inquiry, more police investigations, more arrests, new protections for children, and a complete overhaul of the way organisations work and share information to protect children.”
The CPS was approached for comment.
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