Sir Keir Starmer blasted for ‘back-sliding’ on rape case law

SIR Keir Starmer was blasted for “back-sliding” on rape case law by one of his own shadow ministers, it has emerged.

The Labour leader was Director of Public Prosecutions at the time.

Shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry criticised him in 2012, when she held the same job as now.

She demanded “an urgent rethink of the Crown Prosecution Service’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 let rip: “Rape campaigners have denounced this as backsliding. The trial process can be notoriously traumatic for rape victims.”

At the time Sir Keir’s CPS strongly denied watering down the guidance.

But Ms Thornberry’s unearthed criticism risks shattering Labour’s claim that Rishi Sunak — who only entered Parliament in 2015 — is to blame for Britain’s “broken” justice system.

Sir Keir recently accused the PM of going soft on sex offenders.

Tory MP Brendan Clarke-Smith said: “Labour’s attack has backfired.”

Ms Thornberry also struggled to defend Sir Keir yesterday when grilled on his position when the Sentencing Council decreed not all sex offenders should be automatically jailed.

The Labour frontbencher said she “wasn’t in the meeting” so did not know whether Sir Keir supported or opposed the move.

She told the BBC: “I don’t know the details of what the exact guidance is in relation to the Sentencing Council, but I do know this, that it is open to Parliament to set minimum and maximum sentences.

“She insisted child sex attackers would be locked up as the “default” under a Labour government but admitted no new prison places would be funded. Sir Keir yesterday said he made “zero apologies” for his attacks on Mr Sunak despite a huge backlash which included his own supporters.

Labour pointed out that Ms Thornberry’s letter was critical of the government’s “decision to slash the Crown Prosecution Service’s budget by 25 per cent over the course of the Parliament”.

A party source said: “As Emily makes clear, this was a criticism of the impact of the cuts imposed by the Tory government on the CPS, and no criticism of the CPS itself, or Keir Starmer as DPP.

“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.”