The Labour peer Lord Janner is under investigation in Scotland over new historical claims of sexual abuse.

Detectives are looking into claims that Janner took a teenage boy with him to Scotland in the 1970s and sexually assaulted him, the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.

Janner is at the centre of a controversy after the Crown Prosecution Service said there was enough evidence to charge him with 22 child sex offences, but decided not to prosecute him because he has dementia. He denies all the allegations.

Asked whether a new investigation had been launched into the 86-year-old, Police Scotland said officers were carrying out an inquiry into a historical complaint but would not confirm a name.

Det Ch Supt Lesley Boal said: “Police Scotland is conducting an investigation into an historic complaint and, as such, it would be inappropriate to comment. Police Scotland is absolutely committed to preventing all forms of child abuse and to keeping children safe while bringing perpetrators of abuse to justice, regardless of the passage of time.”

Last month, the CPS, covering England and Wales, said it would review its decision not to charge Janner over a string of allegations dating back to the 1960s, 70s and 80s. He has been accused of abusing vulnerable young people at care homes in his former Leicester constituency.

The director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, had said in April that Janner was too ill to stand trial. But she came under considerable political pressure to allow the review, and the threat of a legal challenge by Leicestershire police forced her to draft in an unnamed QC to re-examine the case.



Even if Saunders’ decision is upheld, the latest investigation raises the possibility that Janner could face prosecution in Scotland, which operates its own legal system.

His alleged victim filed a complaint at an Edinburgh police station in 1991, the Daily Mail reported. However Scotland’s prosecution service, the Crown Office, insists the allegation never reached its officials.

Janner was first accused of abuse in 1991 by a witness at the trial of Frank Beck, a serial abuser who ran children’s homes in Leicestershire.

His only police interview took place that year at a police station in Leicester. He attended with his solicitor and gave “no comment” answers. The CPS decided at the time that there was no evidence to warrant charging him.

Janner told parliament that the claims against him consisted of “disgraceful, contemptible and totally untrue allegations”.

Since then, more than a dozen people have came forward to accuse Janner of a catalogue of abuse against young boys. His family have always denied the claims.

The CPS has admitted it made mistakes and that Janner should have been prosecuted earlier when his health was better.

Saunders said Janner would have been charged with 22 sex offences against children if he had been fit to stand. These include 14 indecent assaults on a male under 16 between 1969 and 1988; two indecent assaults between 1984 and 1988; four counts of buggery of a male under 16 between 1972 and 1987; and two counts of buggery between 1977 and 1988.

In a letter to the Times, a cross-party group of MPs said the decision not to prosecute was damaging to public confidence, while the then deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, expressed sympathy with calls for a review.

Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor, said Saunders was wrong and suggested there should have been an open hearing before a jury to decide whether Janner was fit to enter a plea.

The former DPP Ken Macdonald added to the pressure by saying that if a judge had decided whether to continue with the prosecution, there would have been “no doubt” that the allegations had been handled properly.



Justice Lowell Goddard, the New Zealand judge leading an independent inquiry into child sex abuse, said she would investigate claims against Janner and could even call him to give evidence.