Lord Greville Janner was a British barrister and a Labour MP in Leicestershire for 27 years. In 1997, he was ennobled as a Life Peer taking the title Baron Janner of Braunstone. Janner died in December 2015, aged 87, at the height of a controversial child sex abuse investigation that proved he had escaped justice for decades.
A keen magician, Janner was a member of the Magic Circle and the International Brotherhood of Magicians and according to a 1984 dossier report on paedophiles allegedly associated with the British government, he was also a Freemason.
A look at Masonry and Magic.
Here is a brief account of the child sex abuse allegations that followed Lord Greville Janner to his death:
In 1991, Frank Beck was sentenced to 5 life terms for sexual abuse against more than 100 children. Beck was the director of a British children’s care home in Leicestershire, England. At the end of his trial, Beck named Lord Greville Janner as being involved in the abuse, a claim Janner responded to in a police interview with “no comment”. No charges were brought against him.
Between 2002 and 2006, more allegations against Janner were made, but despite lengthy police investigations, he was never charged.
In January 2013, as an investigation into Westminster child abuse was being reviewed, Operation Enamel was launched, and dozens more sexual abuse allegations were made. Police interviewed at least 20 men who allege Janner seriously abused them as children.
Several times before 2013, the testimony of alleged victims had been disregarded and in some cases discredited. The Chief Constable of Leicestershire during the 1980's was Michael Hirst. According to legal papers, which date from the early 1990s, Mr Hirst was ‘very close friends’ with Greville Janner. Both men, the 1984 dossier alleges, were Freemasons. Hirst was said to have ensured Janner was untouchable.
In April 2015, the Crown Prosecution Service said the decision not to charge Janner previously was wrong because there was enough evidence against him to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for offences of indecent assault and buggery. However Alison Saunders, director of public prosecutions said he would still not be prosecuted for 22 child sex offences due to severe dementia, making him unfit to stand trial. It can be noted that despite suffering from "severe dementia" Janner was serving as Director of his own company until six days before the CPS announcement.
An independent report on the case was carried out by retired judge Richard Henriques in May 2015. It confirmed that Janner had been subject to three police investigations between 1991 and 2007 and never charged.
That report is no longer available to view online, with a 404 error report in its place. For such an important case in the Westminster sex abuse scandal, one would be rightly curious as to why this report has been removed from the CPS website. The only document relating to Janner on the CPS website takes us to a link suggesting a FOIA request had been issued for the amount Richard Henriques was paid for the Janner review, and that link leads to an unrelated document.
What the Henriques report found:
The 1991 police investigation into Lord Janner was inadequate with "extremely limited" inquiries being made. The investigation required further inquiries before the CPS made it's decision not to prosecute. The allegations of this case related to 1975 when, it was alleged, a 14 year old boy met with Janner after the then MP performed magic tricks.
A further investigation took place in 2002, but documents relating to Janner were not passed to the Crown Prosecution Service by police.
A 2007 investigation provided adequate evidence to charge Janner for indecent assault and buggery. He was not arrested and his home was not searched. A reviewing lawyer at the CPS, who had advised in both previous investigations cited problems of credibility with one of the alleged victims. This victim had claimed that on one occasion, Janner patted a fellow abuser on the back and said: "Well done, you groomed him well."
Following opposition from victims and campaigners, an independent review overturned the CPS/Saunders decision not to prosecute Janner, however a senior judge later ruled he was unfit to plead in a criminal trial. Janner died at the end of 2015 while awaiting a rare trial of facts. He was said to have died peacefully at his Hampstead home, aged 87.
Janner transferred the deeds to his luxury property during the time when allegations against him were being investigated.
The director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, said: "It is a matter of sincere regret that on three occasions, opportunities to put the allegations against Lord Janner before a jury were not taken."
Liz Dux, formerly a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, the firm representing eight of Janner's alleged victims, said "It is vital that those who made the decisions which resulted in Janner escaping justice are called to explain their reasoning". And according to solicitors at the time, the report increased belief among victims that a cover up to protect Lord Janner had taken place. It seems Janner was consistently protected against prosecution over a 24 year period, and at the same time found himself elevated to the House of Lords.
In July 2016 it was reported that eleven police officers and staff were under investigation for the mishandling of child sex abuse claims against Janner.
Operation Enamel ended when Janner died, and connected Westminster abuse inquiry Operation Medway is ongoing. We can hope that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse is able to investigate in more detail why charges were never brought against Janner whilst he was alive. The inquiry, began in 2016 by looking at abuse claims against Janner and an update of the progress can be found here and here, as investigations into institutional responses to allegations of Janner remain ongoing.
Lord Janner of Braunstone obituary.
Please read my previous posts Freemasons and the British Police Part 1: The Hillsborough Tragedy and Is Discrimination a Reason to Protect Freemason Identity?