Greville Janner could be arrested if he does not attend court to face allegations he sexually abused nine boys over three decades, after his lawyers lost a legal challenge.

The former Labour peer’s legal team had argued that forcing him to attend court on Friday would have a “catastrophic impact” on him because he has Alzheimer’s disease.

Paul Ozin, for Lord Janner, asked two senior high court judges to spare the 87-year-old the “barbaric, inhumane and uncivilised” ordeal by lifting the threat of an arrest warrant if he failed to attend.

But the legal challenge was summarily dismissed on Thursday by Lady Justice Rafferty and Mr Justice Irwin.

The ruling means Janner must now appear in court for the first time in the criminal proceedings over 22 child sex abuse allegations, in which he is accused of molesting nine boys between 1963 and 1988.

Ozin told two senior judges: “Lord Janner’s dementia is now at such a level of severity that it amounts to a perfect storm in terms of the adverse impact on him of attending court.



“It is barbaric, inhuman and uncivilised to expose a very vulnerable person to the experience I have alluded to, particularly when it is wholly unnecessary and serves no logical purpose.”



Giving the fullest description of Janner’s health to date, Ozin told the high court on Thursday that the former Leicester West MP had “virtually no language left at all” and that he was housebound and had symptoms of Parkinson’s syndrome.

“Lord Janner’s dementia is now at such a level of severity that it amounts to a perfect storm in terms of the adverse impact on him of attending court,” he said.

“Lord Janner is now a frail, elderly man. He has now developed symptoms of Parkinson’s, he is largely confined to a wheelchair, there was some evidence of him moving from time to time but ... with decreasing frequency. He no longer goes outside.”

A doctor who recently examined Janner said the peer became “angry and irritable” at the suggestion of attending court, shouting “No, no, no!” or “What? What? What?”. Bringing Janner before a court would be a breach of his human rights prohibiting torture, inhumane or degrading treatment, Ozin argued.

But that argument was rejected as “simply unarguable” by judges Rafferty and Irwin. “There is no question of torture, or of inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment,” Rafferty said, handing down her judgment without hearing oral argument from the prosecution. Even if Janner was to suffer an adverse reaction from attending court it would be “very short-lived and, as a consequence of his condition, rapidly forgotten”, the judges said.

The judges ruled that there was a strong public interest in requiring defendants to appear in court and that, if Janner’s appeal was successful, it would mean the most notorious, mentally ill suspects would not have to attend.

After delivering her verdict, Rafferty urged the prosecution and Janner’s lawyers to act quickly to bring Friday’s court hearing to a sensible conclusion. “There’s been quite enough sadness and misery attached to all of this.”

The legal challenge was against an order made by the district judge Howard Riddle that Janner appear at Westminster magistrates court after he failed to attend a preliminary hearing last week.

The hearing is now scheduled to go ahead on Friday and is likely to last only minutes, with the judge simply moving the case to the crown court as a matter of procedure for serious offences.

Janner faces a rare criminal trial, known as a trial of the facts, over the 22 alleged sex offences. In a trial of the facts, because the accused cannot put forward a defence, no verdict is reached and the court does not pass sentence. The court can only decide whether the offences were committed as charged.

An independent review in April overturned the original ruling of the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, that Janner should not be charged because of the Alzheimer’s disease.

The 87-year-old’s family strong denies claims he used his power to abuse vulnerable boys at a children’s home.

An independent inquiry into child sexual abuse being led by Justice Lowell Goddard is also due to hear evidence from the complainants.









