Grays visit sees Sir Keir Starmer pledge drugs crack down

Sir Keir Starmer has urged people to await the full review of the police's handling of Nicola Bulley's disappearance before coming to a judgment.

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Speaking to broadcasters in Grays, the Labour leader said: "First and foremost I think all of us will be thinking about the family and the circumstances unfolding and the agony that they're going through.

"Obviously we want the investigation to be now completed so we can get to the absolute bottom of this, there will be a review so if there have been mistakes along the way, the review will get to the bottom of those mistakes.

"Let the investigation go its full length now, let's have that review and then we can see whether the judgments were the right judgments.

"In my experience when I was director of public prosecutions very often where there is a review, some judgments which at the time didn't seem particularly appropriate, are capable of being explained.

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Speaking on a visit to Grays in Essex, Sir Keir said: "One of the things I think people are very concerned about is antisocial behaviour, particularly in town centres, and also drug dealing in town centres.

"That's why I'm absolutely clear, particularly having been director of public prosecutions for five years, that an incoming Labour government would crack down on that."

He said he wanted to support neighbourhood policing, rolling out a tactic called hotspot policing to disrupt gangs by increasing visible patrols.

"People often say to me 'it's low level, isn't it Keir?'," he said.

"I say no, it blights lives."

Asked whether police should be paid more, Sir Keir said: "We do need to attract police officers and retain them, and of course pay and conditions is part of that.

"But talking to police officers this morning there's no shortage of people coming forward to be recruited into the police here in Essex.

"What they want is the respect, the direction, the strategy they need from a government, and an understanding of the role in government in ensuring that crime and disorder goes down, and having confidence in our criminal justice system."

Yvette Cooper MP, Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, said: "For too long the Conservatives have sat back and allowed criminal gangs to grow - dealing drugs on the streets, in town centres and even outside schools.

"Parents really worry about drug dealers hanging around the school gates or gangs trying to recruit kids into crime.

"We will make sure the police can swiftly target serious or dangerous hotspots to keep communities safe.

"Labour will crack down on the gangs with a tough new law to stop gangs exploiting and grooming children into crime.

"And we will deliver 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and PCSOs on our streets."