Exclusive: Police and prosecutors were poised to bring a new set of charges against Lord Janner before his death
Lord Janner was due to face a host of new sex abuse charges before his death, The Telegraph can disclose.
Legal and police sources said the Labour peer, who died on Saturday, was to have been accused of a “significant number” of additional charges before a court hearing which had been due to take place in the new year.
The planned new charges related to a number of complaints by four new alleged victims.
The four are understood to have come forward after publicity surrounding an investigation by Leicestershire Police into Lord Janner’s conduct, centring on a children’s home in the county – where the 87-year-old had been a Labour MP for 30 years.
The peer, who had been ruled unfit to plead due to severe dementia, was already facing 22 allegations of sexual offences which dated back 50 years and involved nine alleged victims, the majority of whom were 16 or younger at the time.
Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP who has played a key role in exposing allegations of paedophilia in Westminster, called for the Government’s child sex abuse inquiry to set up a specific hearing into Lord Janner in the wake of his death.
A rare “trial of the facts” – in which a jury is asked to examine evidence and decide whether the accused committed crimes – had been due to take place at the Old Bailey in April.
However, Crown courts cannot examine allegations against someone who is dead, meaning that hearing will be formally abandoned in the coming weeks, CPS sources said.
Ministers will now have to consider whether there is a case for setting up a separate public inquiry or expanding the remit of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, chaired by senior New Zealand judge Lowell Goddard.
Mr Danczuk said: “I would like a trial of the facts to continue but if that proves impossible the role it would have performed should be adopted by Justice Goddard’s inquiry.
“The inquiry should set up an addendum to its main business and launch a dedicated investigation looking at the Janner accusations in detail.
“This would be a bespoke piece of work and would draw heavily on the work already done by Leicestershire police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
“The inquiry should get specific extra funding to carry out this work.”
A lawyer representing many of the accusers said civil claims against Lord Janner’s estate would continue.
Liz Dux, a specialist abuse lawyer from Slater and Gordon solicitors who represents six of the alleged victims, said: “The only recourse now for Lord Janner’s alleged victims is through the civil courts and the Goddard inquiry.
“We have already issued civil court proceedings and we will now review that.
“In relation to the trial of the facts, the evidence was ready to be tested by a jury in a Crown court.
“I call on that evidence to be presented in full to Justice Goddard’s inquiry so she can make a ruling on the facts and ascertain what has happened in the past.”
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Legal experts have estimated Lord Janner’s alleged victims could submit a combined compensation claim of as much as £2.5 million.
His death raised new questions about the CPS’s failure to bring earlier charges against Lord Janner, particularly after he was named in the 1991 trial of children’s home director and paedophile Frank Beck.
The CPS admitted earlier this year that Lord Janner should have been tried after those allegations, amid claims that there was an establishment cover-up of paedophilia at the highest levels of Westminster.
One unnamed alleged victim of Lord Janner told Channel 4 News: “They had evidence to go on in ’91. What I want to know is why they did not act.
“He was well then, so why was no action taken?”
A CPS spokeswoman declined to comment on any new charges.
Source: Telegraph
