Judge rules abuse claims cannot proceed because of limitation period and impact of delay on cogency of evidence

The claimants – AB, Timothy Betteridge and Wayne Phillips – alleged the abuse was carried out in the 1980s by the late Frank Beck, a council officer in charge of the Beeches children's home, and the late Labour politician Lord Janner, then MP for Leicester West.

Leicestershire denied the claimants were victims of the alleged abuse and said these claims were by now statute barred.

Frank Beck physically and sexually abused some children and in 1991 was convicted of 17 offences and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in 1994.

Greville Janner was a barrister and MP who has been the subject of numerous police inquiries and other investigations, Turner J noted, but who never came to trial due to the onset of dementia and his death in 2015 before proceedings could start.

The time taken by these investigations caused a lengthy delay in the case and Turner J said the Limitation Acts was designed to protect defendants from the injustice of having to fight stale claims, especially when any witnesses might not available or have no recollection and there are no documents to assist the court.

"It is, therefore, particularly relevant whether, and to what extent, the defendant's ability to defend the claim has been prejudiced by the lapse of time because of the absence of relevant witnesses and documents,” he said.

Evidence given “weighs heavily in the balance against the disapplication of the primary limitation period with regard to all three claimants and both perpetrators,” the judge said.

“This weight is clearly even greater in respect of the allegations against Janner than those against Beck.”

He said the delay in bringing the case “has already significantly undermined the cogency of the evidence about whether the abuse took place at all.

“The soundness of the reasons given for the delay is therefore contingent both upon the uncertain foundations of the fact of abuse and upon conflicting medical evidence as to the cogency of these reasons which is, itself, based upon the uncertain issue as to whether each claimant is to be believed.”

Turner J concluded it would not be equitable to allow these actions to proceed and of “particular relevance to the claims relating to Janner, is that his death has had a significant impact on the cogency of the evidence as a whole which is inadequately mitigated by the existence of any compensating contemporaneous documentary evidence or by the combined recollections of those who worked with him at the relevant time”.

Claims against Beck were “less affected by the passage of time to the extent that Beck's death does not deprive the defendant of a witness with any residual credibility.

“Nevertheless, the combination of other features are such as significantly to undermine the cogency of the evidence by the very long delay in bringing proceedings.”

Turner J said: “The consequence of this finding is that it would be inappropriate for me to embark upon the process of adjudicating upon whether or not I would have found the claims to have been proved had there been no limitation issue taken. It follows that I make no factual findings that the claimants were abused or not abused by the perpetrators identified in these claims. Nor do I make any finding as to whether Janner was an abuser or not.”

Mark Smulian