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Andy Burnham has come under fire for hiding a “sickening secret” regarding one of Britain’s greatest crimes.

In an explosive episode of the Daily Expresso podcast, host JJ Anisiobi revealed a bombshell Burnham “does not want anyone to talk about” to TalkTV presenter Mark Dolan. JJ said: “Reform have been talking about it, and they’re going to hammer him with this every single week at the dispatch box. Burnham has been accused of betraying the victims of the grooming gangs because he was working under Blair in the Home Office, he was part of the team who stopped a lot of investigations.”

JJ referenced Operation Augusta, a 2004 investigation into child sexual exploitation following the fatal drug overdose of 15-year-old Victoria Agoglia, which closed months after Mr Burnham was appointed as a Home Office minister in 2005.

“He was part of the team who said, ‘we’re not investigating that anymore’. That is part of Burnham’s legacy, and he does not want the country knowing about this,” JJ said.

To which Mr Dolan added: “He doesn’t, it’s one of the greatest crimes in the history of this country. So many of these crimes happened in Labour controlled local authorities and constituencies, a decision to look the other way as these crimes happened was inherently political because of the ethnicity of some of these monsters.

“Andy Burnham is quite probably part of a progressive left establishment that looked the other way.”

Accusations come after Keir Starmer’s resignation as Prime Minister this morning and Mr Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election on Friday. The previous mayor of Manchester will now run to replace Starmer and snatch up the keys to Number 10 – a move backed by Wes Streeting. But a scandal that unravelled under his career could threaten his integrity as PM.

Mr Dolan said: “Is he exclusively responsible? Is it all his fault? No, but symptomatic of an attitude that has seen upwards of a quarter of a million girls attacked in the most brutal way, in ways that we cannot describe on a family show like this.

“What you would like in a future Prime Minister is somebody that did everything they could to stop this.”

The grooming gang scandals were government failures in preventing, identifying and prosecuting widespread cases of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation between the 1990s and 2010s. Councils, police and social services facilitated and concealed crimes in Greater Manchester and other Northern areas.

Reform have previously slammed Mr Burnham for mishandling the issues that occurred under his influence.