Labour peer Lord Janner of Braunstone will escape charges over alleged historical child sex crimes because he is suffering from severe dementia.
Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, announced on Thursday that it is not in the public interest to put the QC and former MP on trial.
The Crown Prosecution Service said the allegations against Janner are “extremely serious” and the evidence against him would have warranted a criminal trial. But his poor health meant they have decided to not pursue the case in the courts.
In a statement, the CPS said it “considers that the evidential test was passed on the basis that the evidence is sufficient to have warranted charging and prosecuting Lord Janner in relation to the particular charges” relating to nine individuals.
But it added: “The CPS has concluded that Lord Greville Janner should not be prosecuted because of the severity of his dementia which means he is not fit to take part in any proceedings, there is no treatment for his condition, and there is no current or future risk of offending.”
Janner would have been charged with a string of sex offences against children, the CPS said. He would have been charged with 14 indecent assaults on a male under 16 between 1969 and 1988; two indecent assaults between 1984 and 1988; four counts of buggery of a male under 16 between 1972 and 1987; and two counts of buggery between 1977 and 1988.
Leicestershire Police said they are “exploring what possible legal avenues
there may be to challenge” the decision by the CPS not to prosecute.
More than a dozen people came forward claiming they were abused by Janner, the CPS said.
It is claimed the Labour politician used his influence as MP for Leicester West to prey on and abuse boys at local children’s homes.
In its statement the CPS said most of the alleged victims were residents in Leicestershire children’s homes in the 1970s and 1980s.
The CPS said: “The children and young people in this case were vulnerable and in a situation where they should have been looked after and protected. The allegations in this case are thus extremely serious, with a number of alleged victims and allegations of multiple offending over a lengthy period of time.
“The core allegation was that Lord Janner, in a position of authority and trust as the local MP for Leicester West at the time, befriended the manager of a children’s care home to allow him access to children in order to allow him to perpetrate serious sexual offences on children.”
Some of the allegations surfaced in the early 1990s and three investigations were launched into Janner over the next 20 years.
The CPS admitted it made “mistakes” and Janner should have been prosecuted earlier.
The CPS said: “In relation to the other three previous investigations, the CPS also now considers that the evidential test was passed.
“It follows that the CPS judges that mistakes were made in the decision-making at the time by both the Leicestershire police in 2002 and the CPS in 1991 and 2007.
“Lord Janner should have been prosecuted in relation to those complaints.”
The decision not to prosecute now will provoke debate about the slow pace of historical child abuse investigations and prosecutions. Victims of abuse have claimed that the establishment has hidden a number of politicians and judges who have abused children.
Crown Prosecution Service lawyers have spent nine months studying evidence gathered by Leicestershire police’s Operation Enamel.
Detectives have interviewed more than 25 men who claim they were abused by Greville Janner in their youth.
On Wednesday night police officers visited the alleged victims to inform them of the decision not to proceed to trial, the Times reported.
The decision could also highlight tensions between police and the
Crown Prosecution Service. Investigating officers have previously
expressed their frustration at the CPS’s slow pace.
Janner, 86, the former MP for Leicester West, denied the
allegations against him when they first surfaced two decades ago.
He has not been interviewed by detectives because of poor health but police obtained warrants to search his home in Hampstead, north London, and his office in the House of Lords.
He was previously investigated in the early 1990s but detectives on the case were told by senior officers that they must not arrest the MP or search his property.
Saunders’s decision has angered campaigners who believe a trial would be in the public interest.
The National Association for People Abused in Childhood said that the CPS decigion was a “step backwards for justice”.
Pete Saunders, a spokesman, told Radio 4’s Today Programme: “There is enough evidence to proceed with this case and that Alison Saunders can say it is not in the public interest is an outrage.
“I am not saying it is in the public interest to send a very old man
to prison, but surely it is in the public interest to expose the evidence and give victims the chance to be heard.
“The message here is that if you are old or important you can still
get away with it.”
Janner, a prominent advocate for Jewish rights and against the
Far Right who was president of the Board of British Jews, has led
efforts to see Holocaust victims receive compensation.
In 1955, he married Myra Sheink who passed away in 1996. He has three children and many grandchildren.
His family have claimed that the allegations are unfounded and cannot be tested because he is suffering from dementia.
