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Keir Starmer has faced calls for an inquiry into grooming gangs. (Image: Getty)

Sir Keir Starmer is facing a barrage of calls to launch an enquiry into grooming gangs in the UK, but maintains that one is not necessary.

Tech billionaire El on Musk has been a particularly vocal critic of the prime minister, going as far as to call for him and Safeguarding Secretary Jess Phillips to be jailed for being complicit in the “rape of Britain”.

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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage also used his party’s first conference of the year to call for an inquiry into what he called the “mass rape abomination” of young girls.

Sir Keir hit back yesterday, accusing Mr Musk of spreading “lies and misinformation” and defending his stance against launching a grooming gangs enquiry.

The prime minister said: “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they are not interested in victims. Those who are cheering Tommy Robinson are not interested in justice.

“They are supporting a man who went to prison for nearly collapsing a grooming gang case. These are people trying to get some kind of vicarious thrill from street violence that people like Tommy Robinson promote.

“And those attacking Jess Phillips, who I am proud to call a colleague and a friend, for not protecting victims – Jess Phillips has done 1000 times more than they’ve even dreamt about.

“And so, just as I took on the criminal justice system and the institutions when I was chief prosecutor, I’m prepared to call out this for what it is. We’ve seen this playbook many times, whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence.”

But Mr Musk has also had staunch defenders, one of whom was a victim of the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal that exposed the abuse of 1,400 girls by grooming gangs between 1997 and 2013.

Sammy Woodhouse helped expose the scandal by giving an anonymous interview to The Times. Since then, she has become an activist supporting child sexual abuse victims forced to commit crimes by their abusers.

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Elon Musk has called for an inquiry into grooming gangs in the UK. (Image: Getty)

Woodhouse took to Mr Musk’s social media platform X to praise him for raising awareness of child grooming in the UK. She claimed he did more to this cause “than anyone else in British history” and slammed critics for “picking him apart”.

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She wrote: “Elon Musk has raised more awareness around the world in regards to children in the UK being groomed, abused, raped, tortured, trafficked and murdered than anyone else in British history and yet people are sat here moaning about it and picking him apart. Grow up and get a grip.”

Sir Keir acknowledged that child sexual exploitation is “utterly sickening” and something that he “tackled that head on” as director of public prosecutions, but stopped short of committing to an enquiry into it.

He concluded: “This Government will get on with the job of protecting victims, including child sexual abuse, mandatory reporting, accelerating the processes. But what I won’t tolerate is this discussion, debate based on lies without calling it out.

“What I won’t tolerate is politicians jumping on the bandwagon simply to get attention, when those politicians sat in government for 14 long years, tweeting, talking, but not doing anything about it. Now, so desperate for attention that they’re amplifying what the far-right is saying.

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