POLICE Scotland are investigating claims that Labour peer Lord Janner sexually assaulted a teenage boy while north of the Border in the 1970s.
The Daily Mail yesterday reported that allegations were first made against the 86-year-old peer at an Edinburgh police station in 1991. However, no charges were ever brought. The Crown Office say that no file was ever received.
In April the Crown Prosecution Service covering England and Wales said that they had enough evidence to charge Janner with 22 child sex offences. However they chose not to because he has dementia. Janner has previously denied the allegations against him.
A Police Scotland source told the Mail: “We have located the relevant files which show a complaint was made and now a live investigation is under way. We now have to look at this case, applying 2015 policing principles to it – to ask, if the same allegations were made today, how it would be treated”
Detective Chief Superintendent Lesley Boal said: “Police Scotland is conducting an investigation into an historic complaint and, as such, it would be inappropriate to comment. Police Scotland is absolutely committed to preventing all forms of child abuse and to keeping children safe while bringing perpetrators of abuse to justice, regardless of the passage of time.”
If the force is able to gather enough evidence, it could see Lord Janner tried in Scotland.
Last month, the CPS said it would review the decision not to charge Janner.
The original allegations date back to the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and include allegations that he abused vulnerable young people at care homes in his former Leicester constituency.
There have been rumours and allegations about Janner for decades.
The first allegation came during the trial of Frank Beck, a notorious sex offender and paedophile who ran children’s homes in Leicester. At the time Janner used a debate in Parliament to accuse the witness of being involved in a plot to “frame” him.
Janner, who served as a Labour MP from 1970 to 1997, gave his only police interview that year at a police station in Leicester. He attended with his solicitor and gave “no comment” answers.
The CPS admitted it had made a mistake and that Janner should have been prosecuted much earlier. Had that happened Janner would have been charged with 14 indecent assaults on a male under 16 between 1969 and 1988, two indecent assaults between 1984 and 1988, four serious sex attacks on a male under 16 between 1972 and 1987, and two serious sex attacks between 1977 and 1988. A group of the alleged victims told the Sunday Times that they would be bringing civil court proceedings against the peer.
Solicitor Liz Dux, from law firm Slater and Gordon, said between six and ten people would make “significant” compensation claims.
“We are going to pursue a civil claim. It will not be a class action but a series of individual claims,” she told The Sunday Times.
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