Dominic Raab today failed to back his boss Boris Johnson‘s use of a discredited claim that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer took the decision not to prosecute Jimmy Savile.
The Deputy Prime Minister initially tried to write off the Prime Minister’s claims as the ‘cut and thrust’ of a Commons debate, before admitting there was no evidence to back it up.
Mr Johnson made the comments in the House of Commons as he hit back at Labour criticism over the Sue Gray report, claiming Sir Keir ‘used his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile’.
Labour’s leader today accused the Prime Minister of copying ‘a ridiculous slur peddled by right wing trolls’ and insisted he did not help the Top of the Pops presenter avoid trial when he was director of public prosecutions in 2009.
The Crown Prosecution Service has been widely criticised for failing to get justice for Savile’s victims, but a later inquiry found that the decisions was made by police and prosecutors locally, not Sir Keir personally.
Asked if he would withdraw Mr Johnson’s claim, the Deputy Prime Minister told Times Radio: ‘It’s not for me to do that. What I would say is it’s part of the cut and thrust in the Chamber.’
When questioned by the BBC’s Nick Robinson on whether this was a fair description, Mr Raab said: ‘I can’t substantiate that’, adding: ‘I’m certainly not repeating it’.
Tory MP Julian Smith, the party’s former chief whip, turned on his party leader this morning and suggested the PM should go back to the Commons to withdraw it.
He tweeted today: ‘The smear made against Keir Starmer relating to Jimmy Saville yesterday is wrong & cannot be defended. It should be withdrawn. False and baseless personal slurs are dangerous, corrode trust & can’t just be accepted as part of the cut & thrust of parliamentary debate’.
Dominic Raab failed to back Boris Johnson for using Jimmy Savile slurs to bash Labour’s leader
Sir Keir (pictured today) denies being involved in the decision not to prosecute Sir Jimmuy Savile
Mr Johnson made the comments in the House of Commons as he hit back at Labour criticism over the Sue Gray report.
The Prime Minister said: ‘The report does absolutely nothing to substantiate the tissue of nonsense that he has said. Absolute nonsense.
‘Instead this leader of the opposition, a former director of public prosecution – who used his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, as far as I can see – he chose to use this moment to continually pre-judge a police inquiry.
‘He has reached his conclusions about it. I am not going to reach any conclusions and he would be entirely wrong to do so.
‘I have complete confidence in the police, I hope that they will be allowed simply to get on with their job and don’t propose to offer any more commentary about it and I don’t believe that he should either.’
Boris Johnson was under fire in the Commons about Partygate when he made the claims yesterday
Tory MP and former chief whip Julian Smith has also put the boot in to his boss
Police officers who interviewed Jimmy Savile in 2009 over child sex abuse allegations had actively discouraged the Crown Prosecution Service from pursuing the case.
The former BBC DJ, who died two years later, was interviewed under caution by Surrey Police at Stoke Mandeville Hospital after a woman claimed she had been abused as a girl at Duncroft Approved School for Girls in Staines in the 1970s.
Nine days after the interview, which took place in Savile’s own office in the hospital – police advised prosecutors not to pursue Savile. Police also failed to pursue credible claims against him across the country.
Nazir Afzal, a former chief Crown prosecutor for the North West, responded to Mr Johnson’s comments by saying that the reference made to Savile by Mr Johnson was ‘a disgrace to Parliament & office of Prime Minister’.
He wrote on Twitter: ‘Its not true. I was there. Keir Starmer had nothing to do with the decisions taken. On the contrary, He supported me in bringing 100s of child sex abusers to justice.’
In 2020, fact checking charity Full Fact looked into the claim that Sir Keir had stopped Savile being charged in 2009.
Full Fact said Sir Keir was head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) when the decision not to prosecute Savile was made on the grounds of ‘insufficient evidence’, adding: ‘The allegations against Savile were dealt with by local police and a reviewing lawyer for the CPS.
‘A later investigation criticised the actions of both the CPS and the police in their handling of the situation.
‘It did not suggest that Mr Starmer was personally involved in the decisions made.’
The independent fact-checking organisation concluded: ‘Mr Starmer was head of the CPS when the decision was made not to prosecute Savile but he was not the reviewing lawyer for the case.
‘An official investigation commissioned later by Starmer criticised both prosecutors and police for their handling of the allegations.’
Another report found: ‘There is no evidence to suggest Sir Keir Starmer, then DPP of the CPS, was directly involved in the decision not to prosecute Jimmy Savile.’
Savile died in 2011 aged 84 having never been brought to justice for his crimes.
He is now believed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.
A 2016 report into his abuse found staff at the BBC missed numerous opportunities to stop him.