Lord Ashcroft Book Raises Fresh Questions for Starmer Over Savile Scandal – Guido Fawkes

Lord Ashcroft Book Raises Fresh Questions for Starmer Over Savile Scandal

mdi-fullscreen

The Jimmy Savile CPS scandal has reared its head again – this time in Lord Ashcroft’s new biography of Starmer, Red Flag. Co-conspirators will remember that two police forces – Surrey and Sussex – investigated Savile for 30 months over sex abuse allegations. The Crown Prosecution Service helped them. In October 2009 the CPS advised that the case should be dropped.

Starmer has always said that he was never aware the CPS even looked into Savile between 2007 and 2009 – he was DPP from October of 2008. A 2013 review commissioned by Starmer’s then-chief legal adviser Alison Levitt concluded that only one CPS lawyer (granted anonymity) handled the Savile inquiry before dropping it – the inference being that the mystery lawyer acted in isolation. Ashcroft asks in his book if this is plausible…

The book claims that between 2007 and 2009 Surrey Police informed other organisations about its investigation into Savile:

1. Surrey County Council’s children’s services.
2. Barnardo’s.
3. West Yorkshire Police child protection unit.

From 2008 several Sun journalists also knew Savile was under suspicion. Ashcroft writes:

“Savile was not some unknown figure. He was one of the most famous men in Britain, a stalwart of the BBC and the charity world, a knight of the realm, and a sometime friend of the royal family who had once been trusted by senior politicians including Margaret Thatcher… Who decided that Starmer should be kept in the dark about the Savile investigation?”

Starmer’s CPS colleague Alison Levitt, who cleared the organisation of wrongdoing in the matter, was given a political peerage in December of last year and sits in the House of Lords for the Labour Party. The media rounded on Boris for raising the CPS’ failure to pursue Savile despite Starmer claiming he would always carry the can for decisions taken by organisations he ran. Ashcroft raises awkward questions for the PM…