23/02/2026
An Investigation by Express News has “uncovered shocking revelations about the Prime Minister’s Past Actions at the CPS.”
Sir Keir Starmer is facing a renewed political storm over his record as head of the Crown Prosecution Service, as anger over Britain’s historic child sexual exploitation scandals collides with claims that suspected child sex offenders were, in some cases, dealt with through warnings rather than prosecutions.
The argument is not new. It has re emerged repeatedly in the national debate around grooming gangs and institutional failure. What is different now is the way two separate threads are being tied together in public discussion: first, the CPS’s role in high profile exploitation cases during Starmer’s tenure as Director of Public Prosecutions between 2008 and 2013, and second, the broader question of how the justice system has historically handled sexual offending, including decisions that resulted in no charge, no prosecution, or out of court outcomes.
What the CPS chief can and cannot be pinned to
The Director of Public Prosecutions runs the CPS, sets priorities, issues guidance, and is ultimately responsible for organisational standards. But the DPP does not personally sign off every charging decision. Many decisions are taken locally by prosecutors, sometimes following police files that are incomplete, poorly evidenced, or shaped by investigative assumptions. The practical reality is that political accountability often attaches to the person at the top, even where a disputed decision was made several layers down.
This distinction matters because much of the current controversy has been driven by two competing narratives. Critics argue Starmer led the CPS during a period when the state was failing to protect children, and that failure must sit somewhere. Defenders argue that high profile scandals were the product of a wider policing and local authority breakdown, and that Starmer’s CPS in fact changed policy in ways that strengthened the handling of sexual abuse cases.
Both sides can point to pieces of the record.
Rochdale and the case that still defines the row
The most frequently cited flashpoint remains Rochdale. A CPS decision not to prosecute suspects in 2009 was later overturned in 2011 by Nazir Afzal, the CPS’s chief prosecutor for the North West, who had been appointed under Starmer’s leadership. That reversal ultimately contributed to the convictions of nine men in 2012.
Public reporting of the period shows the CPS was criticised for its earlier stance on the complainant’s reliability. That is precisely the kind of institutional attitude victims’ campaigners say infected the system for years, with vulnerable girls treated as unreliable, as consenting, or as too difficult to present to a jury.
Starmer’s defenders counter with two points. First, that Afzal’s later intervention shows a willingness inside the CPS to revisit flawed decisions rather than bury them. Second, that Starmer’s tenure coincided with efforts to modernise prosecutorial thinking around sexual violence and child abuse, including explicit moves away from stereotypes that had long damaged victims’ chances in court.
Savile and the limits of “he was in charge”
A second lightning rod is the CPS decision not to prosecute Jimmy Savile, taken while Starmer was head of the organisation. Fact checking of that episode notes that the decision was made by a reviewing lawyer based on “insufficient evidence”, after allegations were handled by local police, rather than being a personal decision of the DPP.
For critics, this is beside the point. If the organisation had the wrong instincts, if it was too cautious, too deferential, too ready to find reasons not to proceed, then the person at the top still carries responsibility. For supporters, it is evidence of how easily political debate turns “was in charge” into “personally decided”, even where the documented process says otherwise.
So what are “warning letters”, and why has that phrase become toxic?
The most incendiary claim in circulation is that “paedophiles were let off with warning letters”. The phrase sounds like a secret get out clause. In reality, “warning letters” have existed in different parts of the justice and safeguarding landscape, and the phrase can be used to describe very different things.
In some contexts, “warning letters” are administrative steps, such as notices to victims or witnesses about proceedings. In others, they refer to formal warnings in youth justice and safeguarding practice. There are also historical processes where warnings were used in response to harmful sexual behaviour involving children and young people, with the stated aim of stopping behaviour early and avoiding escalation.
In child abuse investigations examined by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the term “warning letter” appears in official histories describing how institutions and investigators communicated, assessed, and sometimes mishandled allegations. It is part of the documentary record of how messy and inconsistent responses could be, especially in older cases that were not treated with the seriousness they demanded.
What is harder to pin down, and crucially what cannot responsibly be asserted without the underlying case files, is a simple headline conclusion that “warning letters” were a default substitute for prosecution in serious child sexual offending. Different forces and agencies used different mechanisms at different times. Some outcomes that look like leniency were in fact the result of evidence thresholds, witness handling failures, or flawed police investigations that left prosecutors with little to work with.
That said, the public anger has a logic of its own. Victims and families do not experience “insufficient evidence” as a neutral technical phrase. They experience it as the state stepping back, again.
What Starmer’s CPS says it changed
There is documented evidence that, towards the end of Starmer’s term, the CPS moved to reframe how child sexual abuse cases were prosecuted, emphasising a shift in approach and encouraging prosecutors to better understand victim behaviour and the dynamics of abuse.
Supporters of Starmer cite those reforms to argue he modernised the system. Critics respond that changing guidance does not erase earlier failures, and that guidance is only as strong as the culture that enforces it.
The larger political problem for Starmer
Even if one accepts the strongest defence, that the DPP did not personally decide every disputed case, Starmer still has a political problem: he is now the face of an era in which Britain’s institutions repeatedly failed abused children.
Sky News’ timeline of the grooming gangs scandal, and multiple inquiries examined by Parliament, show years of delays, missed chances, and systems that treated victims as inconvenient. That historical record is what gives today’s accusations their power, even where specific viral claims are contested or exaggerated.
Full Fact has also documented how some online allegations about Starmer and grooming gangs overstate what is evidenced, or misrepresent clips and claims. That fact checking has not ended the political damage, because the public argument has moved beyond literal truth claims into a referendum on trust.
Where this goes next
The government has in recent years faced intensifying pressure over whether existing inquiries were enough, whether historic cases should be reopened, and whether institutional accountability has truly been delivered. Reporting in 2025 showed major political heat around calls for a broader statutory response and renewed investigative action, driven by campaigners and victims’ families.
For Starmer, the question is not only what happened then, but what he does now. If the Prime Minister wants to shut down the accusation that his era “looked the other way”, he will need to answer the public’s hardest demand: not speeches and slogans, but disclosure, institutional candour, and outcomes that convince survivors the state is finally on their side.
Questions of Judgment and Association
The controversy surrounding Sir Keir Starmer’s CPS years has increasingly merged with a broader debate about judgment in high level appointments. For critics, the issue is no longer confined to what happened between 2008 and 2013. They argue it speaks to a wider pattern of political instincts and decision making at the top.
Attention has focused in particular on Peter Mandelson, the former Cabinet minister and senior Labour figure. Mandelson’s long documented social contact with Jeffrey Epstein has been repeatedly raised in Parliament and the press. Epstein, who died in custody in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges, had cultivated relationships with politicians, academics and business leaders across several countries.
Mandelson has previously said he regretted ever having been introduced to Epstein and has denied any knowledge of or involvement in criminal conduct. There is no evidence that Mandelson committed any sexual offences. Nonetheless, the association itself has been politically combustible, particularly in a climate where institutional tolerance of abuse is under intense scrutiny.
When Starmer elevated Mandelson to prominent diplomatic and advisory roles, critics said it demonstrated tone deafness. They argued that, given the national trauma surrounding grooming gangs and historic abuse scandals, proximity to any figure linked to Epstein would inevitably undermine public confidence.
Supporters counter that Mandelson was never accused of criminal wrongdoing and that guilt by association is a dangerous standard in public life. They point out that Epstein’s social network included individuals across the political spectrum and that no court has found Mandelson complicit in any offence.
The dispute, therefore, is not about proven crimes but about perception and political sensitivity.
Broader Vetting Concerns
Beyond Mandelson, opposition MPs have raised questions about vetting standards for senior advisers and appointees more generally. In some instances, press reports have highlighted past professional or social links between political figures and individuals later convicted of sexual offences. In each case, Downing Street has maintained that proper procedures were followed and that no appointee had been convicted of sexual crimes at the time of their selection.
Still, the pattern of headlines has reinforced a narrative that critics are eager to construct. They frame it as a question of culture. If the state failed vulnerable girls in towns such as Rotherham and Rochdale, and if the CPS struggled historically with charging decisions in sexual abuse cases, then heightened sensitivity in appointments would seem politically essential.
That is the standard opponents say the Prime Minister has not consistently met.
The Political Risk
For Starmer, the difficulty lies in how these strands interact. Each individual controversy might be defensible in isolation. The CPS reforms can be cited. The Mandelson association can be contextualised. The absence of criminal findings can be stressed.
But politics is cumulative. Public trust is not built on technical defences alone. The grooming gang scandals remain one of the most emotionally charged institutional failures in modern Britain. Inquiries have documented systemic blind spots, reputational fears and reluctance to confront uncomfortable facts. Against that background, any appearance of complacency around past associations or safeguarding sensitivities becomes magnified.
Critics argue that leadership requires not only legal innocence but unimpeachable judgment. Supporters argue that the Prime Minister is being targeted with insinuation rather than evidence.
What is clear is that the issue will not fade quietly. As long as survivors continue to demand accountability for historic failures, the political debate will return, again and again, to the same question. Not only who knew what, but who exercised judgment, and whether the country can be confident that lessons have truly been learned.
The National Brief 