Lord Janner - the unanswered questions

That Labour peer will not face child sex abuse charges marks another unsatisfactory turn in a disturbing saga

Were Greville, now Lord, Janner merely an 86-year-old man in poor physical health and somewhat frail, it would be entirely correct to place him on trial for the serious offences he is accused of. The complainants would deserve such a hearing, Lord Janner would be able to defend himself, the evidence amassed by Leicestershire Police could be laid before the jury, and justice would be served properly.

Lord Janner, however, is in no state to go near a courtroom. According to the opinions of four independent medical experts, his once acute mind has deteriorated to the point where he would not be able to competently instruct lawyers, let alone give evidence and speak for himself. Bitter truth as it is, there is little point in putting someone with such an apparently advanced stage of Alzheimer’s disease in the dock. Unless he has hoodwinked the doctors, and unless the police can succeed in their pledge to find some other way of holding a trial, he cannot and should not be put in the dock. It’s sometimes said that Alzheimer’s is a sort of living death, and no one would propose putting a dead man on trial. Nor would we place an infant or an animal or inanimate object on trial.

Admittedly, it still feels wrong. By any standard these are serious allegations, even if they involve crimes committed by people not in the public eye or in a position of authority. When there is such widespread public concern about such activities taking place in the higher echelons of society – and subsequently allegedly covered up by those same powerful elements – there is every reason to pursue all avenues to learn the truth.

There is, by all accounts, a considerable weight of evidence from the alleged victims, and their case deserves to be heard. We hope their stories will be told. By contrast, Lord Janner was able to protest his innocence in Parliament, and rely on MPs such as Keith Vaz to support him.

That such serious allegations will go no further so far as the courts are concerned may be sickening, but there seems little alternative in these unusual circumstances. What it does mean, however, is that any other police inquiries need to be pursued with great urgency, before more supposed perpetrators lose their minds or die.

Which leaves open the crucial question of how it came to be that investigations into the Janner allegations and consideration of a trial took so very long – so long, indeed, that Lord Janner will probably never answer any charges. The same goes for other alleged offences of this nature, where the supposed abusers are now dead. Were the victims’ allegations properly looked into at the time? Were there cover-ups? Were the police efficient? Did the Crown Prosecution Service act with sufficient speed? Did they examine all the legal options to try to secure some form of justice for these alleged victims?

All these questions will now be examined by the forthcoming and wide-ranging statutory Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, itself subject to inordinate delay in getting under way under an acceptable chair. Now we have the appointment of Lowell Goddard, and we must trust that the inquiry will succeed in finding out some more of the truth about what appears to have been an era of institutionalised sexual corruption.

It will, so far as it can, determine if crimes have been committed, how they came to be committed, and how it was that justice was never secured. It will help the victims, and provide explanations, but it will never be the same as a trial, justice and punishment.