Lord Janner’s family in legal bid to exclude him from sex inquiry

CHIEF REPORTER THE Government’s inquiry into child sex abuse was thrown into fresh turmoil last night when the family of Lord Janner announced it was planning a legal action to have him excluded from the investigation.

Allegations of sexual assault and rape against Lord Janner, who died in December, were to have been examined by the inquiry under the chairmanship of Dame Lowell Goddard.

But just hours before her dramatic resignation last Thursday, Janner’s family wrote to the inquiry informing it of their legal bid to have allegations against him dropped from it.

The family is convinced the move added to the pressure building on Dame Lowell, already struggling with the inquiry’s huge scope, to quit.

Ivor Frank, one of the inquiry panel’s the inquiry of his plan to take Dame Lowell to court at just after 1pm on Thursday. Her sudden resignation was announced a few hours later.

Mr Janner told “We are considering a judicial review to get my father’s strand of the inquiry removed.”

Mr Janner said his legal team believed there were a number of grounds to have him excluded, including the refusal of the inquiry to allow witnesses accusing Lord Janner of abuse to be cross-examined. “It is a manifestly unfair procedure,” said Mr Janner. “It is difficult enough that he is dead.”

The family also accuse Dame Lowell of wrongly picking out their father for investigation as the inquiry’s remit is to examine institutional treatment of abuse, while they also point out Janner was never convicted of any offence. They also argue that civil claims against his estate by alleged victims should proceed before the inquiry hears any public evidence.

“My plea to the inquiry is for the new chairman to remove my father as a separate named strand of the inquiry. This has become a legal Titanic without a captain,” said Mr Janner.

Family members have produced a dossier of evidence, which they say bolsters their claims of Janner’s innocence. They claim that one of his most vocal alleged victims made previous, false claims of sexual abuse against a female care home worker.

The Crown Prosecution Service has said that prior to his death there had been three missed opportunities to charge Janner. Those will be the focus of the Janner strand of the inquiry.

The Home Office must now find a fourth chairman for the inquiry. Baroness Butler-Sloss and Fiona Woolf both quit before Dame Lowell took the job. The Home Office has ruled out appointing an interim chairman.

Abuse survivors are keen for Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, to appoint Prof Alexis Jay to the role. Prof Jay already sits on the panel and led the investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.