Keir Starmer slammed by Emily Thornberry for ‘back-sliding’ on rape case law

Sir Keir Starmer was criticised by a senior member of his shadow cabinet for “back-sliding” on rape case law.

The Labour leader was slammed by shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry while in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Ms Thornberry, who was also shadow attorney general at the time, wrote to Sir Keir in 2012 demanding “an urgent rethink of the CPS’s decision to weaken guidelines that specialist barristers must deal with every stage of a rape prosecution”.

In a letter to Sir Keir and then Attorney General Dominic Grieve, she said: “Rape campaigners have denounced this as backsliding. The trial process can be notoriously traumatic for rape victims.”

The letter was unearthed days after Ms Thornberry vigorously defended a party attack advert claiming Rishi Sunak does not think child sex abusers should go to prison. The shadow attorney general acknowledged there has been a lot of criticism, including that the social media message is “racist”, but she said the critics are “wrong”.

Her defence came as the controversial campaign drew cross-party condemnation and was described by critics as “gutter politics”.

Ms Thornberry’s letter risked undermining Labour’s claim that Mr Sunak is responsible for Britain’s “broken” justice system. It also came amid reports that Sir Keir sat on the Sentencing Council in 2012 that agreed child sex abusers should not be automatically jailed, although a maximum of sentence of 14 years behind bars was set.

A Labour source told The Independent that Ms Thornberry “makes clear this was a criticism of cuts imposed by the Tory government on the CPS”. The source said it was “not a criticism of the CPS itself or Keir Starmer as Director of Public Prosecutions”.

“It had no impact on the ability of the CPS to charge rapists or put them in prison, both of which were happening at much higher rates under Keir Starmer’s watch than is happening today under the Tories,” they added.

Ms Thornberry’s letter went on to state: “It is not acceptable that [the Tory] government’s decision to slash the CPS’s budget by 25pc over the course of the Parliament means that rape victims cannot get the legal support to which the particularly harrowing nature of their ordeal entitles them.”

But it is the latest twist in the ongoing row over controversial campaign adverts being used by Labour in the run up to next month’s local elections.

The party sparked uproar last week with the first advert claiming Mr Sunak does not think child sex abusers should go to prison. Other posters claimed Mr Sunak believes adults convicted of possessing a gun with intent to harm should not go to prison. Labour also shared an ad suggesting the PM does not believe thieves should be punished.

It is preparing to go further in the coming days by accusing Mr Sunak of effectively “decriminalising” rape. A poster released yesterday attacked Mr Sunak’s wife’s use of the non-dom tax loophole.