Maggie Oliver, a former Greater Manchester police detective who resigned in 2012 over poor handling of abuse cases in Rochdale, told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight that the home secretary’s statement on child abuse was “a bit of a kneejerk reaction to international horror at what has happened in our country”.

The subject of grooming gangs has come under the spotlight, in part due to interventions on social media from Elon Musk.

The tech-entrepreneur and adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump called safeguarding minister Jess Phillips a “rape genocide apologist” and accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of being “complicit in the rape of Britain”.

Speaking at a press conference, Sir Keir defended his record as director of public prosecutions saying that when he left office “we had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record”.

He said he enjoyed robust debate but said it had to be “based on facts and truth, not on lies”.

“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.”