Janner, 87, unfit to stand abuse trial

LORD Janner, right, is unfit to stand trial for a string of sex offences against boys dating back 50 years due to “deteriorating and irreversible” dementia, a High Court judge has ruled.

Mr Justice Openshaw made his decision based on medical reports which found that the Cardiff-born 87-year-old dementia sufferer could now barely recognise his own family or recall anything about his parliamentary career.

In a hearing at the Old Bailey, the judge summarised the reports from four specialists but said there was “no need for personal humiliation over his condition”.

Even though the public had been “unjustifiably sceptical” over the case he said they still had a “right to know” how he came to his decision about Lord Janner, who was born Greville Ewan Janner in Cardiff but spent his political career as an MP in Leicestershire,.

Greville Janner is charged with 22 sexual offences dating back to the 1960s against nine alleged victims, the majority of them 16 or younger.

There are 15 counts of inde- cent assault and seven counts of a separate sexual offence said to have taken place in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Twenty-one of the charges relate to children who were aged 16 or under at the time.

In his ruling the judge said the allegations of sexual offences against boys had spanned the years between 1963 and 1998.