Lord Janner child abuse scandal: Now Theresa May turns heat on DPP over botched case

By Martin Beckford And Paul Cahalan
Mail Sunday
April 19, 2015

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3045318/Lord-Janner-child-abuse-scandal-Theresa-turns-heat-DPP-botched-case.html

Birthday visit: Lord Janner, right with cake, took Michael Jackson - who was repeatedly accused of child abuse but cleared in court - on tour of Parliament in 2002, together with their mutual friend of Uri Gellar and US magician David Blaine (centre, left). It was the birthday of Labour MP Paul Boateng, alongside Janner

Lord Janner

Alison Saunders

MP Simon Danczuk who exposed the Cyril Smith Scandal

The Director of Public Prosecutions was under growing pressure to stand down last night over her failure to put Lord Janner on trial for serious child abuse offences.

Alison Saunders’s position as the country’s top prosecutor looked bleak as she faced unprecedented criticism from the Home Secretary, police chiefs, crime tsars, prominent MPs – and even one of her predecessors.

Mrs Saunders said her job as head of the Crown Prosecution Service was to make the correct legal decisions in difficult cases, not the most popular ones. But she was accused of ignoring the rights of victims and of perpetrating Establishment cover-ups by deciding that Labour peer Lord Janner should not be charged – despite evidence of 22 offences against nine victims dating back to the 1960s.

Theresa May became the first Cabinet Minister to question the DPP’s judgment in ruling that the 86-year-old should not be prosecuted on the grounds that his dementia is now too advanced for him to have a fair trial.

The Home Secretary told the BBC: ‘I was very concerned when I heard about this decision. I have been very clear in everything I have said so far about the child sexual abuse issue… I expect to see justice done.’

Former DPP Lord Macdonald of River Glaven said it would have been better if Lord Janner had undergone a procedure whereby a jury can decide on the facts of a case without apportioning guilt and without a sentence being passed, if a suspect is unfit to plead.

There have been a number of recent court cases in which defendants with dementia have been jailed, and Lord Janner himself has previously called for Nazi war criminals to be put on trial regardless of their age or frailty.

Lord Macdonald added: ‘It might have been wiser for the Crown Prosecution Service to say, ‘‘We’re going to have this matter resolved in the full public glare of a courtroom rather than simply by the DPP.’’ ’

Adam Simmonds, Police and Crime Commissioner for Northamptonshire, said the decision not to charge Lord Janner on Thursday made it a ‘dark day for our justice system’.

He added: ‘A substantial number of victims of child abuse, who have carried the weight of such heinous crimes with them for the best part of two decades, have been terribly let down in the worst possible way.’

He said the DPP’s ruling went against her previously stated commitment to seek justice for victims, no matter how old the allegations.

Leicestershire Constabulary, which has investigated Lord Janner four times over the past 25 years, is considering an unprecedented legal challenge against the decision.

Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP who exposed the late Cyril Smith as a paedophile, said that the weight of criticism against Mrs Saunders meant something had ‘clearly gone very badly wrong’.

Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, below, he said: ‘Mrs Saunders is now seen as a roadblock to justice and it’s hard to see how her position remains tenable.’

Mrs Saunders has also come under fire over other high-profile cases – and has been involved in a number of disputes over the competing rights of suspects and alleged victims in sex assault cases. Her decision in the Lord Janner case could be overturned if the complainants use the ‘Right to Review’ scheme introduced two years ago. A CPS employee with no prior involvement in the case would consider if her decision was the right one.

Alleged victims of Lord Janner will eventually be able to share their experiences with the long-delayed public inquiry into historic child abuse to be chaired by New Zealand judge Lowell Goddard.

However, that investigation faces further setbacks as campaigners are seeking a judicial review of her decision to exclude child abuse survivors from the inquiry panel for being insufficiently objective.

The CPS’s handling of previous investigations into Lord Janner is also being reviewed by retired High Court judge Sir Richard Henriques.

Last night the CPS said: ‘The DPP is there to make the right legal decision. Her role is to make these very difficult decisions, not to make popular decisions.’

Roadblock to justice must be removed

by Simon Danczuk, MP who exposed the Cyril Smith scandal

A few weeks ago, I met an experienced former Metropolitan Police officer to discuss investigations into high- profile child abusers active in the 1970s.

‘We’re making progress but putting Rolf Harris and Max Clifford behind bars isn’t going to trouble the Establishment,’ he remarked. ‘It’ll be 50 times harder to prosecute a politician. They’re able to call in a lot of favours.’

A year earlier, I’d met police officers from Leicestershire to discuss the case they were putting together against Lord Janner.

I could tell they were determined to get a prosecution, but it was the question they put to me next that disturbed me almost as much as the allegations: ‘Do you think there will be any political interference?’

The fact that dedicated frontline officers investigating heinous crimes against vulnerable children should have to ask that in 21st Century Britain is a worrying sign.

But it’s one we should come to expect given the continual revelations about previous failures to prosecute high-profile figures for abusing children.

The decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions to use the public interest test to overrule the evidence when refusing to prosecute Lord Janner is a reminder that outdated attitudes still prevail. They throw our whole justice system into disrepute.

Not just because the authorities continue to turn a tin ear to those who have been violated, disbelieved and treated as rubbish for decades.

And not just because in admitting previous failures to prosecute Janner, Alison Saunders failed to apologise on behalf of the CPS.

It’s appalling because it’s the wrong decision and one she didn’t have to make. For the DPP to shut down any prospect of justice in such a case sends out the worst possible message at the worst possible time, and her reputation is unravelling fast.

When the Home Secretary says she’s ‘very concerned’, the former DPP Lord Macdonald is critical, and Leicestershire Police are talking about a legal challenge, then something has clearly gone very badly wrong.

So wrong that Mrs Saunders is now seen as a roadblock to justice and it’s hard to see how her position remains tenable.