Following the row over those Labour attack adverts about child sex offenders, it seems it’s open season now on Sir Keir Starmer’s record as Director of Public Prosecutions. Over the weekend the Sunday papers have been filled with stories from when he led the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) including his poor record in, er, prosecuting sex offenders. And in that spirit of reminding people who said what and when, Mr S thought it worth revisiting the past comments of Emily Thornberry, one of the most vocal supporters of Labour’s new adverts.
Thornberry has served as Starmer’s Shadow Attorney General since November 2021 but previously served in that same capacity under Ed Miliband between October 2011 and December 2014. And it was in that role that she frequently attacked Sir Keir, who served as the head of the CPS from November 2008 until November 2013. Below are three examples picked out by Mr S…
July 2010
Thornberry furiously attacks the CPS’s decision to not prosecute the police officer who struck and killed Ian Tomlinson at the G20 summit protests. She tells the House of Commons that it is proof that ‘there is no equality before the law’ – quite the claim given Starmer’s boasts about his work there. She says:
We have all seen the film. The man was clearly assaulted. We have also, have we not, read Nat Cary’s evidence in which he says that there is an area of bruising consistent with being hit with a baton? As Nat Cary says, if that is not ABH, what is? How can the CPS have taken 15 months to come to no conclusion? It is not going to take any action. I suggest that that would not have happened if the tables had been turned and this shows that there is no equality before the law. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman agrees, what is he going to do about it?
September 2012
Thornberry – in a post on her website titled ‘CPS backslides on rape prosecutions’ – writes to Starmer, demanding ‘an urgent rethink of the CPS’s decision to weaken guidelines that specialist barristers must deal with every stage of a rape prosecution.’ In a letter to Sir Keir and then Attorney General Dominic Grieve, she said: ‘Rape campaigners have denounced this as backsliding. The trial process can be notoriously traumatic for rape victims.’ It is written up in the Guardian in an article titled ‘Row over rape prosecutors: Emily Thornberry v Keir Starmer QC.’
October 2012
In an episode of Question Time, Thornberry attacks the CPS for failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, saying:
I’m really disappointed in the Crown Prosecution Service for letting down these victims. When evidence comes forward I’m really shocked that they did not go ahead with the prosecution… It’s being investigated by the Crown Prosecution Service, it’s a bit like the BBC doing an investigation of itself, or the health service doing an investigation of itself, or Broadmoor doing an investigation of itself.
That same month, Thornberry describes the CPS’s decision not to act on the Savile evidence as ‘deeply disappointing.’ She demands that any review of the decision ‘should be independent of the CPS in order to command public confidence.’
Doesn’t say much for Starmer’s record, does it?
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