Janner family and friends accused of trying to block public inquiry - The Jewish Chronicle

The family and friends of the late Lord Janner were accused on Monday of attempting to block a public inquiry into child sex abuse claims against the former MP.

An inquiry into official handling of the allegations will consider whether the peer enjoyed “preferential treatment” due to his public status.

Most of the three-week hearing, which began on Monday, will be held behind closed doors in order to protect the identity of a complainant witness, who claimed their legal right to anonymity.

Brian Altman QC, counsel to the inquiry, said the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) would not seek to establish guilt or innocence.

“It is not a proxy criminal trial or, for that matter, a civil trial,” he said.

Lord Janner, who was given a peerage in 1997, was declared unfit to plead and died in 2015 at the age of 87 before a trial of facts could go ahead.

He was accused of 22 charges of sexual offences involving nine alleged victims, spanning the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, which he and his family consistently denied.

Nick Stanage, a barrister representing 13 complainants, told the inquiry: “Since 2015, when the inquiry into the case of Lord Janner began, his family has tried to prevent this inquiry from happening.”

He added: “Daniel Janner QC [Lord Janner’s son] has vilified and insulted the inquiry day after day, and frequently in terms which bear little or no relation to reality.

“Friends of the Janner family in high places, including in the House of Lords, have joined a campaign to stop the objective and systematic examination of the evidence.”

Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner told the inquiry her father had become “a target” partly due to his public profile and financial means.

"We have listened carefully to all the serious accusations,” Lord Janner’s youngest daughter said in a statement read aloud by lawyer Danny Friedman QC.

“We believe as totally in our father's innocence today as we always have, because we knew him and we watched him living his life with total openness.

"We believe that dad became a target because of his determination to defend the suffering, his particular public profile and being financially comfortable in his later years,” she said.

“He saw helping others in difficulty as his duty and was perhaps naive as to how such kindness could be exploited,” she said.

The inquiry heard how Lord Janner’s “unconventional behaviour” was partly rooted in his experiences of the Second World War, including the trauma of “being evacuated across the Atlantic” and “witnessing the inhuman aftermath of the Holocaust.”

"His contact with survivors at the Bergen-Belsen refugee camp inspired his commitment to those whose lives had been ruined,” she said.

Mr Altman told the inquiry there were “a myriad reasons why the complainants say that they didn't make their disclosures at the time.”

The reasons included “feelings of fear, shame, embarrassment and confusion about what the complainant says happened or concern by the child that they would not be believed.”

Lawyer Christopher Jacobs said complainant Tracey Taylor, who waived her right to anonymity, alleged she was raped by someone claiming to be Lord Janner in the late 1970s.

“She alleges she was raped … by a man who told her his name was Greville Janner. He said he was an MP and that he could make her the next Prime Minister's wife.

“She has told the police about the abuse, but she has never been believed due to her mental health problems.

"On some occasions, police mocked her statements calling her Crazy Tracey."

The inquiry continues.