Keir Starmer was last night accused of letting child sex offenders off with a warning when he was overseeing Britain’s prosecution service, with critics of the Prime Minister demanding urgent answers.
Critics have declared the Prime Minister’s position as “completely untenable”, after revelations he oversaw the use of “paedophile Asbos” that allowed suspects to get off with a mere warning.
The investigation found documents from his time as Britain’s top prosecutor, describing how the Prime Minister was “drafting and agreeing” warning notices with police chiefs that whistleblowers say have been given to suspected child rapists.
The warning notices were drawn up as part of the CPS’s national strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, with a spokesman for No10 emphasising they are “not a substitute for prosecution”, but rather “act as a first line of defence to keep young people safe, and often as part of an ongoing investigation”.
Police say that the Child Abduction Warning Notice – which were in use years before this document was published 2010 – are an effective way of protecting a child who is regularly missing but may also be used to address controlling, grooming type behaviour which is not associated with missing episodes.
They typically warn an adult that they have no permission to associate, communicate, or have any contact with the affected child.
Keir Starmer reportedly signed off on mere ‘warning notes’ for suspected paedophiles
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GETTYMaggie Oliver, who exposed the Rochdale grooming gangs scandal, described them as “an Asbo for paedophiles.”
The retired detective told the Express: “I worked on a case where we had identified 97 child abusers that investigation should have led to serious charges of child rape on a pretty industrial scale.
“I expected multiple charges of rape against possibly dozens of men, but instead they warned a couple of men under the child abduction warning notices.
“My opinion is they were used to get rid of a job”.
The investigation by the Express claimed the “early intervention tool” was “often used instead of evidence gathering”, and no research was ever conducted into their effectiveness.
One officer from Rotherham, quoted in the Independent Office for Police Conduct grooming gang investigation, raised concerns they were “dishing out” the notices “like confetti” – failing to follow up when they were breached.
Reform UK shadow home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf said the details made the Prime Minister’s position “completely untenable”.
He said: “Instead of fighting for the full force of the law against vile grooming gang predators, Keir Starmer presided over a system that sent out weak and useless ‘warning letters’ to paedophiles.”
The Crown Prosecution Service issue the Child Abduction Warning Notices
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GETTYThe letters, known officially as Child Abduction Warning Notices, can be issued by junior police officers to people they believe to be engaged in inappropriate relationships with minors.
In the wake of the Rochdale and Rotherham scandals, police forces across the country made Warning Notices a cornerstone of efforts to “disrupt” child sexual exploitation networks, as prosecutions are notoriously difficult to achieve.
At least 13,000 were used between 2008-25, not including one of the largest single examples, Operation Sanctuary, which handed out 220 Notices to men involved with a Newcastle-based grooming gang.
The Child Abduction Warning Notices carry no legal power or punishment if breached, but can form part of a later prosecution.
Susan Boxall, whose daughter Georgie died tragically aged 17 from a lethal overdose given to her by a 25-year-old man who had two warning notices from police, claimed they gave a “dangerous illusion of police action”.
The man who was found guilty of supplying the drugs that led to Georgie Boxall’s death had plied the teenager with drugs from the age of 13 when their relationship began.
Despite repeated contact with police, he was never charged with any sexual offences or grooming.
“Starmer has blood on his hands,” Ms Boxall told the Express, “I did everything I could do. They had two abduction orders and he breached them. I was pleading with the police, but no one seemed to do anything”.
A serious case review into Georgie’s death, completed in October 2014, was highly critical of the warning notices, finding the letters failed not because of “individual errors” by officers, but because they were based on a “weak legal premise”.
Keir Starmer has already been criticised for appointing Lord Mandelson, who had links to paedophile Jeffery Epsetin
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PANo 10 did not comment on the Georgie Boxall case, but claimed there had been a “mischaracterisation of the development of Child Abduction Warning Notices, which have been in use since at least the early 2000s”.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said: “They are not a substitute for prosecution. Instead, they act as a first line of defence to keep young people safe, and often as part of an ongoing investigation.
“As director of public prosecutions, the Prime Minister secured the first grooming gang prosecutions more than a decade ago, and now his government is doing more than any before it to root out this vile crime.
“Under this Government, police are reviewing over a thousand historic cases, convictions are at record highs, we are bringing in mandatory reporting and doubling support for survivors”.