Janner will never face trial on child sex abuse charges
LORD Janner will not stand trial on 22 child abuse charges because of his advanced and irreversible dementia, a judge ruled yesterday.
The Labour peer, 87, has forgotten the names of his children and grandchildren, cannot remember his parliamentary career or where he went to school, and is rapidly losing his capacity for coherent speech.
Janner was examined by four doctors who found that his mental health was so severely impaired that he would be unable to understand what was going on in a courtroom. Mr Justice Openshaw took the unusual step of releasing details about Janner’s condition because the public had a ‘right to know’.
Quoting from a report by Professor Michael Kopelman, an expert in memory loss and a professor of neuropsychiatry at King’s College London, he said: ‘he can now hardly speak, and when he does it is often only to make inappropriate repetitive statements.
‘he can no longer read a book or follow the television, so he no longer watches. he scarcely recognises his own family and has entirely lost even his short-term memory.
‘he is now unable to give any meaningful account of any aspect of his personal or professional history. There are further impairments involving memory, naming, attention, language, verbal fluency… and personal self-care.
‘All the tests… have shown a progressive decline in the defendant’s degenerative dementia which is incurable and irreversible.’
The judge added: ‘The defendant is not and never will be fit to plead or to stand trial.
‘The medical opinion is all the same way – the inevitable and inescapable conclusion is the defendant has advanced and disabling dementia which is deteriorating and irreversible.
‘Accordingly, I find he is unfit to plead and be tried on the indictment.’ The ruling clears the way for the case against Janner to be heard in a ‘trial of the facts’ based on prosecution evidence (see panel above).
If the jury was satisfied that the acts were committed, it would not amount to a conviction although Janner could be moved to secure accommodation if he were found to be a risk to the public.
Janner, a barrister and Labour MP in Leicester for 27 years until made a peer in 1997, is charged with sex attacks on nine boys in children’s homes between 1963 and 1988. his youngest alleged victim was eight.
Yesterday the Old Bailey heard that Professor Kopelman examined Janner four times between February last year and September this year. After his first examination, he reported that Janner could not name his children and grandchildren, remember where he had been to school or university, or anything of his more recent professional or parliamentary life.
In his final report, he said the defendant’s condition had deteriorated markedly.
Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, was heavily criticised last year when she ruled that it would not be in the public interest to charge Janner because of his ill health. After a public outcry and an appeal by six of Janner’s alleged victims, the case file was reviewed by a senior QC and the decision was reversed.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for March 7, when there will be further legal discussions. A date for the trial of facts has been set for April. Janner’s family have described him as a man of great integrity who is ‘entirely innocent of any wrongdoing’.