Keir Starmer under pressure to ditch Labour MP engulfed in Rotherham grooming scandal

SIR Keir Starmer is under pressure to ditch a Labour MP candidate engulfed in the Rotherham grooming scandal.

Dominic Beck quit as a council cabinet member in 2015 after a damning report on the authority.

It was accused of ignoring the horrific sexual exploitation of more than 1,400 girls between 1997 and 2013 by gangs of predominantly Pakistani men.

But now Beck could join Sir Keir in the Commons after being selected as the party’s candidate in Rother Valley.

Sir Keir faces calls to dump him after admitting as Director of Public Prosecutions the abused girls had been betrayed by the justice system.

The current Tory MP Alex Stafford said there was no way Beck should be an MP.

He told Trending In The News: “No one who has been involved in, or had knowledge of and failed to speak out against, the grooming gang scandal should have any position of authority at any level.”

The 2014 independent report by Professor Alexis Jay laid bare how the majority of the grooming perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage.

Beck was not a cabinet member at the time but was promoted to the top team shortly afterwards.

Yet he was forced to step down in 2015, along with the rest of the cabinet, when a second report by Louise Casey blasted the council for being in “robust denial” about the findings.

While Beck resigned he was later reappointed back to the cabinet and is still there.

Beck said he was “absolutely delighted and humbled” to be named as the Labour candidate for Rother Valley.

A Labour spokesperson said: “The Labour Party takes the findings of the Jay and Casey reports incredibly seriously.

The NEC took the necessary action at the time against officials implicated.”