Northern Ireland man's petition over Boris Johnson child abuse funding 'malarkey' comments

A former senior police officer from Northern Ireland is applying for a parliamentary petition to sanction Boris Johnson for recent comments he made about investment in historic child abuse investigations.

Jim Gamble, from Co Down, is the former chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

Mr Johnson claimed during an interview with LBC last week that police funding was being "spaffed up the wall" investigating historical child abuse cases.

The former foreign secretary said "an awful lot of police time" was spent looking at "historic offences and all this malarkey".

Mr Gamble, who was the senior child protection officer in the UK's first investigation into the disappearance of Madeline McCann, said on social media that he needed five UK citizens to support his suggested petition.

Mr Gamble said Mr Johnson's comments were "inappropriate and hurtful".

He added: "They're not 'malarkey' nor is the money being 'spaffed' up a wall".

Alliance MLA's Naomi Long and Paula Bradshaw have both signed the petition.

If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If it gets 100,000, it will be be considered for debate in Parliament.