Twelve former residents of children’s homes say they were abused by Lord Janner, a BBC investigation has found, as criminal proceedings end.
The peer, who died before a court could examine claims of child abuse against him, regularly visited homes in Leicester in the 1970s and 1980s.
An ex-police officer says he reported suspicions about Lord Janner, a decade before police began a full inquiry.
Lord Janner, who had dementia and died aged 87 in December, had denied abuse.
A “trial of the facts”, due to take place in April, has now been shelved by prosecutors.
A jury would have been asked to decide – without reaching a decision about whether he was guilty – if 22 alleged incidents of abuse from the 1960s to the 1980s had taken place.
Lord Janner’s family have said he is “entirely innocent” and a man of “great integrity and high repute”.
However, the BBC has traced and interviewed dozens of men and women who lived at children’s homes in Leicestershire in the 70s and 80s.
It has also spoken to council officials, social workers, police officers and journalists involved in investigating the case of Frank Beck, a notorious care home manager who was eventually convicted of child abuse.
One man, Mark, who has never spoken about his experiences publicly before, said Lord Janner, a member of the Magic Circle, would undress him, wash him and touch him intimately, during visits to the Moel Llys children’s home to perform magic shows.
Mark said he was 11 or 12 at the time. “It’s mentally scarred me for life,” he told the BBC. “I can never get rid of it. You feel ashamed and you feel dirty. Useless and worthless.”
The BBC has learned that lawyers are now representing at least 20 men and one woman, including the 12 residents of children’s homes, who say the former MP abused them.
Police have said they have information from 25 alleged victims.
Five alleged they were abused at the same Leicester primary school when Greville Janner visited. The allegations range from groping to the most serious forms of child sexual abuse.
They also include:
- a former resident of The Beeches children’s home who claims he was forced to have sex with Lord Janner during an overnight stay at a different home
- a man, also once a Beeches resident, who claims Lord Janner and Frank Beck both seriously abused him
- an allegation the late peer severely abused a boy in his primary school classroom and playroom
- two men claiming Lord Janner abused them in the House of Commons during a visit
- allegations the MP took boys to the swimming pool of the Leicester Holiday Inn where he groped them
Source: Lord Janner ‘abused 12 at children’s homes’ – BBC News