Sir Keir Starmer confirms he had death threats after PM’s Jimmy Savile claimon February 14, 2022 at 12:39 pm

Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed he received death threats after Boris Johnson falsely claimed that he failed to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile.

Speaking to BBC Newcastle, the Labour leader said the PM was “wrong” to repeat “a right-wing conspiracy”.

Mr Johnson has not withdrawn his claim, but clarified his remarks to say Sir Keir was not personally involved in decisions over Savile.

Meanwhile, the police are investigating online death threats against Sir Keir.

Documents, including messages from users of the Telegram app, were sent to Scotland Yard by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) on Friday.

Asked if he felt responsible for the death threats or would like to apologise, Mr Johnson said: “I’ve said more than enough about that issue.”

The prime minister’s official spokesman added: “Any sort of death threats to politicians are unacceptable.”

Before entering politics, Sir Keir had a career as a lawyer and acted as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) between 2008 and 2013.

On 31 January, during a stormy Commons debate about lockdown parties in No 10, Mr Johnson accused Sir Keir of spending “most of his time” at the CPS “prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”.

Mr Johnson subsequently faced calls from some of his own MPs to apologise for the comment.

Pressed on the subject three days later, Mr Johnson said: “I totally understand that he [Sir Keir] had nothing to do personally” with decisions not to prosecute Savile.

“I was making a point about his responsibility for the organisation as a whole.”

Speaking to the BBC, Sir Keir said after Savile died in 2011 he ordered an audit to find out if any allegations against the TV personality had come to the CPS.

“I found out decisions had been made years earlier that I didn’t know about in local offices, quite rightly, to where I think two individuals had come forward, separately.

“They had each said that they wouldn’t support a prosecution against Jimmy Savile.

“I was concerned that the system hadn’t worked out there were two cases and therefore there was a systems failure.”

He said following the audit he made the decision to “change the system”.

A week after Mr Johnson’s Savile remark in the Commons, Sir Keir was surrounded by protesters as he left Parliament, with some shouting “Jimmy Savile” at him.

Mr Johnson tweeted that the “behaviour directed” at the Labour leader was “absolutely disgraceful”.

Sir Keir has said he believes there was a link between the protests and the prime minister’s comments telling The Times: “I have never been called a paedophile protector before.

“That happened yesterday for the first time in my life. If others want to argue that this is unconnected with precisely what the PM said one week before then let them make that case. But they’ll never persuade me that there is no link.”

Speaking on BBC’s Question Time last Thursday, Environment Secretary George Eustice said Sir Keir would “obviously want to make that particular political point” but argued it was wrong to make a connection between the protests and the prime minister’s words.

Asked on Monday if he had received death threats as a result of the prime minister’s comment, Sir Keir replied “yes,” adding: “It’s very important for me to say that what the prime minister said was wrong, it was very wrong. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“There has been a right-wing conspiracy theory for some time that’s a complete fabrication.

“He fed into that, and that has caused difficulty, but my preference is not to talk about that because, as I say, I have got young children and I don’t particularly want them to hear too much of what may or may not be said about me.”

He later said there were “threats to too many politicians,” particularly woman, and that everyone had a duty to “de-escalate these issues”.