Woman's Rape Claims Against Father & Brother were 'Shelved' by Gardaí for 11 Years

Alleged victim claims she was told gardai ‘forgot’ to send file to DPP

DPP then refused to prosecute

IT TOOK GARDAÍ 11 years to pass claims to the DPP from a woman that she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of male relatives from the age of 7.

The woman said her father first raped her as a child and encouraged one of her brothers to do the same. Her claims were verified by social workers and in documents seen by TheJournal.ie, a social worker said “the father accepts he abused her”.

However, even though the woman brought her claims to gardaí in 1997, when she was in her 20s, the case was only passed on to the Director of Public Prosecutions ELEVEN years later, in 2008.

Store Street Garda station. It is not clear which Garda station the woman reported to.

The woman said she received a call from a blocked number shortly after the file eventually went to the DPP telling her that no charges were to be brought against her father and that she received no official correspondence from gardaí to that effect.

As per DPP rules, there are just 28 days in which to lodge an appeal against the decision not to take a prosecution. The woman in this case claims she was not told this and had assumed that she had no more avenues available to her.

However, in some cases the DPP might extend this time limit. The DPP will do this only if there is a good reason and if it is in the interests of justice. The victim has since written to the DPP in recent weeks asking to be told the reasons why her father was not prosecuted.

The woman also claims that she was told by gardaí that the 11-year delay was because investigating gardaí at the Dublin station where she lodged her complaint “forgot to send the file to the DPP”.

Complaint made

In September 1997, the victim made her official complaint to the gardaí and a statement was taken. Her father was brought in for questioning and she was told that a file was being prepared for the DPP.

In the meantime, one of her brothers – who was also due to be questioned – took his own life.

The woman heard no more about her case and had suffered a number of nervous breakdowns in the following years and began receiving therapy from around 2000.

She was told by her therapist that it would be in the interest of her mental health to get closure on the abuse and finding out why she had not heard back from gardai or the DPP could help with this. This led her to investigate what happened to her initial complaint.

Garda meeting

In early 2008, the woman made representations to both the DPP and gardaí, asking for an update on her case some 11 years after she first made her complaint.

A matter of weeks later, the woman, by then a mother herself, received a phone call asking if she could come in and meet the then Chief Superintendent and Superintendent of the same Garda station in which she had made the official complaint.

She claims that she was told her file was not sent to the DPP when it should have been and that an internal investigation was ongoing to try to figure out why that happened. She was told she could contact the Garda Ombudsman and that she was entitled to make a complaint. However, she was assured that her case was now a priority. Therefore, she told TheJournal.ie, she decided against contacting the Garda Ombudsman hoping her case would be dealt with in a more timely fashion.

A number of months later, the victim then received a phone call stating that the DPP had decided not to pursue the case. She said she was “devastated” as she had provided a lot of documentation to gardai in 1997 in which social workers confirmed that she had been abused, and that it was always her greatest fear that she wouldn’t be believed.

Documents proving abuse/removal from home

Documentation by the Eastern Health Board (EHB) and social workers seen by TheJournal.ie confirm the following:

The woman was sexually assaulted as a child

Her father and brother performed “full intercourse” with the child

Child sex abuse was confirmed by the social workers and EHB

Her father cut a hole in her wall and would routinely watch his daughters undress

She and her three sisters were placed in care for a time. She was 7 at the time.

Two older sisters were then sent to a home in the southeast of the country

The victim and her younger sister went to a children’s home in north Dublin

All the girls were returned to the family home after six months

No male child was ever removed from their family home

Court documents show that the parents were not fit to take care of her

Source: TheJournal.ie

The woman’s parents are still alive.

The partially-redacted document (above) from the Eastern Health Board details the removal of the four girls from their home in 1980:

It was therefore decided to seek a Fit Persons Order in court and, if granted, would remove the four girls from their home. The Justice granted the Fit Persons Orders on the four girls to the Eastern Health Board for a six month period. It is the intention of the Health Board to request an extension of this period when the case comes up for review in February 1981. It is the belief of the clinic team here that the future happiness of these girls depends on offering them an alternative to the situation in which they were living at home.

After six months in care, all four of the young girls were returned to their home. The woman said that the abuse continued.

When asked for comment on why the children were returned to their parents in 1981 and no legal action taken against the father, Tusla said it cannot comment on incidents which predated its existence. The HSE, when asked for comment on the actions of the Eastern Health Board in this case, referred us to Tusla.

Continued abused

More documentation seen by TheJournal.ie states that the victim’s father had a drinking problem and would interfere with the woman, when she was a child, on a regular basis. The documents also show that one of her brothers would get involved in the abuse.

When she became older, she would routinely ask her mother for money to attend a local disco and was told the family had not enough money. She claimed that her father would bring her out the back garden, force her to perform a sex act on him and then hand her money to go out with her friends.

On one night when she was 15 and attending the local disco, the girl suffered a fit and was brought by ambulance to Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown. It was there she told doctors that she would not return home.

Statements and documents created by the Eastern Health Board and social workers at this time show how the family was already known to the health services.

A letter from a social worker at the hospital reads: “[Victim] aged 15 was brought to casualty at about 1.30am on 2.3.89 by Dublin Fire Brigade ambulance. She had been at a disco/dance, had sustained an epileptic fit and had been found outside Wynn’s hotel. She told me she left home four days ago and had gone to live with a cousin….. She had begun to have epileptic seizures four years ago and had not had a seizure for a year until last night.”

It continued:

She refused to go home.The gardaí had gone to the family home but her parents refused to have anything to do with her. She wanted to go back to her cousin’s house, so I brought her to X. No-one was in, neighbours did not know where [her cousin] was so I brought her to Focus Point [now Focus Ireland].

The letter finishes with the fact that “the family is already known to the Eastern Health Board”.

Another document from this time relates to her being placed in the emergency accommodation provided by Focus Point.

I contacted parents and brought her to see X. (Risk Identification Checklist signed by mother). Records in [a child and family agency at the time] shows history of sexual abuse (father/daughter [7]).

“[Social worker] passed on the following information he received from X (victim). Mr [name redacted] has an alcohol problem. He harms X in a sexual way when he has drink taken, the family known to [the] Child and Family Centre some years ago. Allegations of sexual abuse leading to X and sisters in care home some 10 years previously.

I read through some of the large file… and confirmed that Mr Y had an incestuous relationship with his daughter. Also X’s brother was also abusing her.

A letter from a social worker detailing some of the alleged abuse.

Also references large file on the family held at child and family centre.

Source: TheJournal.ie

The girl, then 15, spent a short time in the emergency hostel but eventually went home again because she was told her father was getting treatment to stop him from abusing her. He also was receiving treatment for alcoholism at a rehabilitation clinic.

A social worker wrote about this, reconfirming that she had been in an abusive situation and that her father had admitted the abuse:

Previous history of abuse by father and brother (24) which included intercourse by offenders. This was eight years ago. X (victim) says her father touched her in a way she didn’t like and she ran away. It appears that he fondled her breasts. She stayed in emergency hostel care but has since gone home. Father accepts that he abused her. X says she feels safe at home now and she has been referred to the Rape Crisis Centre.

Below that statement, it is confirmed that the health board was dealing with a case of child sex abuse (CSA). The box indicating ‘confirmed child sex abuse’ is selected.

The woman said the abuse stopped at home when she returned and she finally left for good at 18. She did not find out until she was an adult that her father had previously spent time in a psychiatric unit after he interfered with young children outside the family before she was born.

TheJournal.ie contacted the Department of the Taoiseach, the Department of Justice and the DPP for comment on the case. Both departments said that this case did not fall under their remit. The DPP said it could not comment on an individual case and on questions around the woman’s appeal, and directed us to their website for regulations and deadlines relating to applications.

An Garda Síochána declined to formally comment on the accusations or on whether an internal investigation was conducted into the woman’s claim that she was told her file was “forgotten” for 11 years.

However, they said they were satisfied that a file was sent to the DPP in 2009 and that no prosecution was recommended.

Tusla has said that it can’t comment on the case as it occurred before the child and family agency was set up.

The HSE was contacted for comment about protocols which were in place regarding child sex abuse reports and what standard procedure at the time was for bringing these issues to the attention of gardaí.

They referred us to Tusla.

Lord Janner to Face Justice After DPP Ruling Overturned

Pressure grows on director of public prosecutions Alison Saunders to resign as it emerges trial of facts will take place after sex abuse allegations

 Lord (Greville) Janner, pictured in 2005. Alison Saunders said it was not
 in the public interest to charge him because he had dementia.
 Photograph: Nick Razzell/Rex Shutterstock

Pressure is growing on the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, to resign after her decision not to charge Lord Janner with a string of sexual abuse charges dating back to the 1960s was overturned in a review by an independent QC.

Janner is to face justice in a trial of the facts following a review from an unnamed QC, the Crown Prosecution Service will announce on Monday.

It will be the first time that allegations against Janner – which have been investigated in the past in three failed police investigations – will be aired in a courtroom.

Actually, they weren't 'failed' police investigations, they were 'sabotaged' police investigations.

Saunders said in April it was not in the public interest to charge Janner, because he had dementia, which meant he was unfit to enter a plea. Her decision was challenged by alleged victims in a formal process known as the right to review. It is believed to be one of the first times that alleged victims have overturned a DPP’s decision.

Saunders overruled a specialist QC, Eleanor Laws, an expert in child abuse law, who recommended that the peer be charged. The DPP’s decision led to an extraordinary rift with Leicestershire police, who spent two years investigating Janner in the latest inquiry and said Saunders’ failure to charge him was “perverse”. The force threatened legal action to overturn the DPP’s decision.

The family of the 86-year-old peer have said he is innocent of any of the allegations.

Alleged victims of Janner said that they had received hand-delivered letters on Saturday informing them that the CPS’s decision not to prosecute had been reversed.

One, who has asked to remain anonymous, said: “It shouldn’t have taken this long – 45 years for some – to get to this point. Saunders should go because she has tried to stop the truth from coming out.”

Another alleged victim, Paul Miller, accused Alison Saunders of incompetence.

Miller, 53, from Leicester, claimed he was groped by the former Labour MP at the Palace of Westminster during a school trip when he was nine. He told the Sunday Express: “It’s great news but Alison Saunders should be sacked. She’s been proved to be incompetent in not making the right decision in the first place. Her position is now untenable.”

Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP for Rochdale, led calls on Friday for Saunders to resign following initial reports that the decision would be overturned.

“All suggestions are that Saunders reached the wrong conclusion in April and this is not the first time she has made a major mistake,” he said. “She has struggled in some of her decisions to pursue journalists through the courts, too. Her job is all about judgment.”

David Davis, the Conservative MP and former shadow home secretary, said this was the right decision but questioned why it had taken Saunders so long to come to this “unusual” conclusion.

“It is hard to know why she decided not to have a trial of the facts in the first place, only to decide to do so after the huge political furore,” he said. “This has been a terrible process which has prolonged the misery not just for the alleged victims but also for Janner and his family.” He stopped short of calling for her to resign, saying to do so would be premature.

John Mann, the MP for Bassetlaw who has called for criminal inquiries into other historical claims of child abuse against former and existing Parliamentarians, said the decision should be welcomed because it would open doors for new inquiries. “This decision is a huge breakthrough. Hopefully, we will be able to look at the way MPs and peers have used privilege and their connections to stop inquiries into their alleged conduct,” he said.

Mann added that he did not want Saunders to leave her post. “This would be a distraction from the job in hand of uncovering the truth about alleged child abuse. She should be shouting much louder to get enough resources to properly resource her prosecutors who are looking into historical child abuse claims.”

In a “trial of facts”, the jury is asked to decide – on the basis of evidence adduced by prosecution lawyers and by lawyers appointed by the court to put the case for the defence – whether or not the accused did the acts he was charged with. Because the defendant cannot put forward a defence, there can be no verdict of guilty and the court cannot pass sentence. All the court can do is to make a hospital order, a supervision order or an order for the defendant’s absolute discharge.

Liz Dux, a lawyer from Slater and Gordon representing a number of the alleged victims, said: “My clients are delighted by this decision. It is a total vindication of why they challenged the original decision of the DPP. All they have ever wanted was to give their evidence in a court and have findings of fact established. They have been denied this right for many many years but now their faith in British justice is restored and they look forward to being listened to after so long.”

Retired Detective Breaks Silence on Janner Investigations

Senior detective breaks silence about former case against Janner

Janner - inspecting the chickens? 1972

A senior detective who investigated child abuse allegations against Labour politician Greville Janner has revealed he was ordered to drop the case 'from the very top' – despite uncovering compelling evidence to charge him.

Breaking a 24-year silence over the scandal, former Detective Inspector Kelvyn Ashby told The Mail on Sunday that during an investigation lasting several months in 1991, he found vital clues that backed up claims that Janner had molested a teenage boy at his marital home and a hotel.

Last night the retired policeman spoke of his anger after being ordered not to arrest Janner because he was an MP. 

Mr Ashby said: 'I felt we had done a good job. I felt we had enough to arrest him but we didn't because he was an MP. I think we should have done. I was gutted that we didn't.'

Detective Inspector Kelvyn Ashby said he found vital clues that backed up
claims that Janner had molested a teenage boy at his marital home and a hotel

And he revealed he was left sickened when Janner sent him a Christmas card thanking him for the way he was treated and inviting him to dinner at the Commons.

As the cover-up scandal deepens over Janner – now deemed too ill to stand trial despite evidence he abused nine boys over three decades – The Mail On Sunday can also reveal:

The head of children's charity the NSPCC has demanded the Director of Public Prosecutions explain her decision not to let the case against Janner be heard in court

More than 40 politicians have signed a letter condemning the way Janner has been allowed to escape justice

Home Secretary Theresa May told this newspaper that the Janner case could deter other victims of abuse coming forward

Janner went on more than 20 working trips abroad in the years after he was reportedly diagnosed with 

Janner was a well-known Leicester MP, barrister and author when in 1991 he was suddenly publicly accused of child abuse at the trial of a notorious paedophile. 

Predatory children's home boss Frank Beck claimed he had tried to stop a boy in his care from visiting Janner, and sensationally called the alleged victim as a defence witness.

By then aged 30, the alleged victim told jurors he was only 13 when Janner had befriended him. He claimed the politician forced him into sex at a hotel, at his London home and on a tour of Scotland.

No charges were brought against Janner and he was backed by fellow MPs after telling the Commons he had been framed by Beck and his accuser.

Prosecutor Alison Saunders (right) who ruled that Lord Janner (pictured in 1996) would not face trial over alleged child sex abuse trained at the same legal firm where he was a QC

But today it can be told for the first time that police had been desperate to see Janner brought to justice after discovering evidence that corroborated the alleged victim's account.

We can reveal that officers went to the North London home where the boy was allegedly abused by Janner and found that it matched his description exactly, with an en suite bathroom off the master bedroom.

They also proved that Janner had stayed at the hotel in Scotland where he was said to have taken the boy.

1974 Greville Janner, Labour MP and QC, alleged to have begun two years of abuse with teenage boy living at a Leicester children’s home.

November 1991 Claims against Janner first made public at trial of paedophile children’s home boss Frank Beck, with the alleged victim giving detailed evidence against him.

December 1991 Janner defends himself in House of Commons and is supported by fellow MPs after police decide not to take action against him.

2002 Leicestershire Police launch Operation Magnolia into historic abuse at local children’s home and again investigate Janner, but take no action.

2006 Operation Dauntless looks at allegations of child abuse in 1981 by three men – two who were by then dead, and Janner.

December 2007 Local CPS lawyers decide not to charge Janner over the latest allegations – and breach normal procedures by not telling bosses in London since the case involved an MP.

2009 Janner diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, according to the CPS, but continues to speak and vote in the House of Lords, as well as going on 20 working trips abroad, in the next few years.

December 2013 Janner’s home in North London searched as police begin a new investigation, Operation Enamel, into historic sex abuse claims.

March 2014 Officers search Janner’s office in the House of Lords.

April 9, 2015 House of Lords receives letter, purportedly from Janner, saying he wants to continue his leave of absence, which started in October 2014.

April 16, 2015 CPS announce they have evidence to charge Janner with 22 child sex offences against nine victims, but will not do so because he has severe dementia.

Speaking in detail for the first time about the case last night Mr Ashby, now 65, said: 'He gave us an account of Janner's house, how many rooms it had and the layout of the furniture. When we visited, Janner had long since moved but the house was exactly as the alleged victim said it was. I was in no doubt he had been in that house.

'We looked at the Scottish tour and believed him, we established Janner stayed in those hotels but could not prove the boy was with him. But we had the note, his testimony, and the fact a boy had been taken out of care to stay in London with an MP. 

'It meant we had enough in my eyes.' Mr Ashby – at the time a Detective Inspector and the Senior Investigating Officer in the Beck case – was working with a Detective Sergeant called Mick Creedon, now Chief Constable of Derbyshire Police.

Detective Sergeant called Mick Creedon

Mr Ashby said: 'Mick and I believed an arrestable offence had been committed and that once we arrested him we could search his house and see if there was any material that helped corroborate what the alleged victim said.

'Someone higher-up told us that we couldn't just arrest an MP and it went no further. We were told that by someone senior, who I can't name, but the order had to have come from the very top. I'm sure my bosses' hands were tied.

'I was extremely frustrated. We might have found more in his house, or maybe more victims would have come forward. Janner should have been arrested. He was treated differently because he was an MP.' Janner was questioned at a police station in Leicester but refused to answer questions.

Mr Ashby, who left the police in 2002, went on: 'The bit that really got me was that I later got a Christmas card in the post from Greville Janner. 

'The card was an official House of Commons Christmas card and was handwritten. It said something like 'I was very pleased with the way you treated me' and invited me and my wife for a dinner at the House of Commons. I couldn't believe it.

'My wife was disgusted, as was I. Needless to say we never replied and never went. I'm only speaking now because the police investigation has stalled. Also, I have to think about the victims and I feel they have been let down.'

A decade later in 2002, Leicestershire Police began another investigation against Janner but no charges were brought.

Then after a third probe in 2006, by which time Janner had been given a peerage by Tony Blair, detectives passed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service but local officials chose not to charge him.

By then, it would reflect on Tony Blair's poor judgment to charge him. Blair certainly displayed poor judgment in giving him peerage.

In 2013 Leicestershire Police began yet another investigation against Janner and got as far as searching his London home and House of Lords office, while more than 20 victims gave statements against him.

The cover-up scandal deepens over Janner (pictured) – now deemed too ill to stand trial despite evidence he abused nine boys over three decades

Ten days ago Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders announced there was enough evidence to charge Janner with 22 offences against nine alleged victims – but he could not be prosecuted because he has severe dementia.

The CPS claimed Janner was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2009. But analysis of his activities since then shows he went on at least 20 foreign trips, including to Israel and America as part of his work fighting anti-semitism and bringing Nazis to justice. He was still chairman of an all-party Parliamentary group two years ago.

Last night Leicestershire Police declined to comment on Mr Ashby's revelations, but confirmed it is now looking again into the earlier cases.

Janner's family have issued a statement insisting he was 'entirely innocent of any wrongdoing'. Of course they did. What else would you expect them to say, "Oh, yes, he's an old bugger"?

The head of Britain's top children's charity last night condemned the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for her bungling of the Lord Janner child abuse scandal – putting her under greater pressure to quit.

Peter Wanless, the chief executive of the NSPCC, demanded that Alison Saunders explain her controversial decision to keep the sickening allegations against the Labour peer out of court. And he warned her poor handling of the case will deter victims coming forward in the future – and could heighten fears of an Establishment cover-up.

Mr Wanless's accusations, in a letter seen by The Mail on Sunday, will put the beleaguered DPP under greater pressure to step down or reconsider her decision to spare Lord Janner prosecution on the grounds that he has dementia.

In his letter, sent on Thursday, NSPCC chief and key Government adviser Mr Wanless told the DPP he was not challenging the medical evidence that Lord Janner has Alzheimer's so is unfit to stand trial.

Peter Wanless the chief executive of the NSPCC, demanded that Alison Saunders
explain her controversial decision to keep the sickening allegations
against the Labour peer out of court

But he demanded answers as to why law chief Mrs Saunders did not choose a well-established procedure often used when suspects lack mental capacity, known as a 'trial of facts', in which jurors hear evidence but do not find guilt and no punishment is imposed by the judge. 

Mr Wanless said justice should have been done – as the CPS admitted last week it should have charged him after three earlier investigations by Leicestershire Police.

He wrote: 'Given the exceptional historical mistakes in this matter, I would like to understand why you did not deem it in the public interest to have a trial of facts, given this legal mechanism exists to enable the alleged victims to present their evidence in court and have a decision made as to whether Lord Janner carried out the alleged acts.

'The decision by the CPS enables the disparity in the public arena between the position of the alleged victims and those of Lord Janner's family to exist in perpetuity.'

He went on: 'With victims of child sexual abuse, it is the very fact of being able to give evidence in court and have a decision made on the allegations which is so crucial.

'The courage required to come forward when you are or have been a victim of child sexual abuse should not be underestimated.

'We are concerned as to the unintentional consequences the situation could have on encouraging other victims of child sexual abuse to come forward, particularly if the accused sits in a position of influence or power.'

Is it possible that deterring victims from coming forward was part of the intent?

Mr Wanless's letter will carry weight as he is a former senior civil servant who last year was called upon by the Home Office to search its archives for the notorious 'Dickens dossier' on alleged VIP paedophiles.

Mrs Saunders, however, believes it would be wrong to hold a trial of facts, because they are usually used when the suspect poses a danger to the public and a judge needs to impose an order to ensure they receive hospital treatment.

Sounds like it qualifies to me. However, as I pointed out a few days ago, there has been a precedent of holding a trial for a man with advanced dementia. Lord Janner could be tried in absentia!

She told the BBC last week: 'The medical evidence was very clear in this case that there was no ongoing risk.' Oh, right, yeah. What medical evidence?

Mr Wanless still believes that Lord Janner's accusers need to be satisfied that justice has been done.
Mrs Saunders suffered another knock last night after a Survation/MoS poll said calls for her to resign are supported by 44 per of the public with 27 in favour of her staying on.