Let police do their job, PM tells Jenrick and Badenoch

Keir Starmer has warned the two Conservative leadership candidates, Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch, against undermining police efforts in the investigation into the Southport attack.

- Aletha Adu

Speaking at prime minister's questions yesterday, Starmer said it was important to allow police and prosecutors to "do their difficult job" and that all MPs had a choice to make to "either support the police in their difficult task or undermine the police in their difficult task".

On Tuesday police announced that Axel Rudakubana, 18, the suspect accused of murdering three girls in Southport in July, was facing new charges of possessing terrorist material and producing the highly toxic poison ricin.

Badenoch had said it was "quite clear that there are serious questions to be asked of the police, the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] and also of Keir Starmer's response to the whole situation".

Jenrick said the attack was of "immense public concern" and that people "had a right to know the truth straight away", but that he was "seriously concerned that facts may have been withheld".