Boris Johnson sparks fury after slamming £60m spent on child abuse investigations
The gaffe-prone MP said the cash should have gone into areas like tackling knife crime
BORIS Johnson sparked a furious row yesterday by saying money spent on child sexual abuse investigations was “spaffed up a wall”.
The gaffe-prone MP blasted the £60million spent on the police probes into historic allegations, and said the cash should have gone into areas like tackling knife crime.
But he was slammed for using the word spaff – which is slang for masturbating.
Talking about the knife crime epidemic, he told an LBC radio phone-in: “Keeping numbers high on the streets is certainly important. But it depends where you spend the money and where you deploy the officers.
“And one comment I would make is I think an awful lot of money and an awful lot of police time now goes into these historic offences and all this mullarkey.
“You know, £60 million I saw was being spaffed up a wall on some investigation into historic child abuse.”
The Met Police spent millions investigating allegations a VIP paedophile ring including Sir Ted Heath and Leon Brittan operated in Westminster.
But the probe collapsed and the accuser – known as Nick – has been arrested and charged for making false allegations.
Political opponents rounded on the ex-foreign secretary, accusing him of belittling abuse victims.
Labour shadow police minister Louise Haigh branded him a “shameless, dangerous oaf” and Labour MP Angela Rayner said he must apologise for the “disgusting comments”.
Labour MP Catherine McKinnell said: “This is the most disgusting ignorant comment.”
Labour MP John Mann said: “Boris Johnson says investigating historic child abuse was a waste of money.
“Try telling that to my constituent whose rapist got 19 years after we pressured for case to be re-opened.”
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