London Yvette Cooper, Britain’s Home Secreatary announced on Thursday that a number new local inquiries would be conducted by the central government to investigate allegations dating back years of child grooming gangs. This announcement came weeks after Elon Tesla accused British Prime Minister Keir starmer of failings regarding the handling of these crimes in a string of tweets. The crimes occurred a decade earlier when Starmer served as the country’s chief prosecutor.
Musk’s tweets were directed at Starmer and suggested that he be put in prison. They also said “America should free the people of Britain” from their tyrannical governments, bringing the crime back into British politics.
Starmer defended Starmer’s record and denounced criticism as political motivated.
Starmer told reporters that they were only interested in themselves after Musk’s tweets earlier this month. He did not mention the tech mogul or span class=”link”>a data-invalid-url-rewrittenhttp=”” href=”https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon musk-277 million trump republican candidates donations/” target=”_blank/a>/span> by name. Starmer said to reporters that they were only interested in themselves after Musk’s tweets from earlier this month. He did not mention the close ally of Donald Trump.
A newspaper report in 2012 on grooming led to an important government investigation, which, two years later, found that between 1997 and 2013, at least 1,400 Rotherham children were subjected sexual exploitation. In other towns, similar exploitation has been discovered. This led to a nationwide inquiry.
In the report, Starmer’s prosecution service was criticized for failing to pursue charges in Rochdale after an investigation in 2008-2009 because they viewed a woman as “unreliable”. This decision was overturned later by Starmer’s appointee.
A 2013 report by the Home Affairs Committee stated that “Mr. Starmer worked to improve the treatment for victims of sexual abuse within the criminal justice systems throughout his tenure as Director of Public Prosecution”.
Starmer defended himself vigorously in response to Musk’s Twitter posts and the political pressure that they caused.
In this case, I brought the first prosecution against an Asian grooming group. It was a first. Starmer stated that we changed the prosecution strategy because I challenged the stereotypes and myths that prevented victims from being heard. When I left office we had the most child sexual abuse cases prosecuted in history.
Starmer initially stated that further investigations into grooming gangs might delay the fight against child abuse.
Starmers’ spokesperson told reporters last week that “we will be guided” by the victims. The victims have expressed their desire to avoid another national investigation.
