The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has released a report that accuses Leicestershire Police officers of shutting down investigations into Lord Janner “without pursuing all inquiries”.
Lord Janner was a British politician who became a Leicester Labour MP in the 1970 general election. He was an MP until 1997 until his elevation to the House of Lords.
In 1991 several allegations of child sexual abuse were made against Janner, and criminal proceedings were brought against him in 2015 but were halted by his death in December of the same year.
A recently published report lead by Professor Alexis Jay, chairman of the Inquiry, said police and prosecutors “had appeared reluctant to thoroughly investigate” claims against Lord Janner despite “various serious accusations”.
At the time of his death, Lord Janner was awaiting trial in relation to allegations made by nine separate complainants. The prosecution was also in the process of seeking to add charges from three further complainants.
The report stated that Leicestershire Police’s Operation Magnolia, which examined allegations against Lord Janner in 1999, was insufficient and seemingly involved a deliberate decision by Leicestershire Police to withhold critical witness statements from the Crown Prosecution Service.
“On multiple occasions, police put too little emphasis on looking for supporting evidence and shut down investigations without pursuing all outstanding inquiries,” Professor Alexis Jay said.
The report also looked at another police investigation, Operation Dauntless, which began in May 2006 following further claims from an alleged victim.
The victim’s allegation stated that several men, including Lord Janner, had sexually abused them.
The Inquiry found that the senior investigating officer and Leicestershire Crown Prosecution Service appeared ‘reluctant’ to progress the investigation.
The report stated that the police and Crown Prosecution Services choice not to carry on the investigation was “unsound and strategically flawed”.
Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police, Simon Cole, said the following in regards to the report:
“On behalf of Leicestershire Police, firstly, I would like to reiterate the wholehearted apology I gave in February 2020 to any complainant whose allegations during earlier police investigations into Lord Janner were not responded to as they should h
Police investigations into accusations of child abuse by former MP Lord Janner tarnished by “a series of failings”, report says