Lord Janner expected in court on child sex abuse charges
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Lord Janner is expected to appear in court to face child sex abuse charges after his lawyers lost a High Court bid to prevent him having to attend.
The 87-year-old, who has dementia, is due at Westminster Magistrates' Court later after judges ruled it was in the "public interest" for him to be there.
The ex-MP's lawyers had argued it was "barbaric, inhumane and uncivilised" to force him as he was too ill.
He denies 22 charges of child sex abuse spanning the 1960s to the 1980s.
If the peer does not attend the brief hearing, he could be arrested - or prosecutors could ask the High Court for a voluntary bill of indictment to allow the case to proceed in his absence.
Lord Janner's lawyers had argued he had "virtually no language left at all" and was likely to have a "catastrophic reaction" if he attended court.
But they said they were not planning to appeal the ruling.
The judges said the public interest outweighed any personal distress he might experience, and any distress would be "of short duration".
Who is Lord Janner?
- Greville Janner was born in Cardiff in 1928
- Served in the Army and studied at Cambridge before becoming a barrister and then QC
- Labour MP for Leicester North West and then Leicester West from 1970 until retiring in 1997, when he was made a life peer
- Served as president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews
- Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2009
- Suspended from the Labour Party but will remain a member of the House of Lords until his death or until he retires
- Described by his family as a man of "great integrity" and "entirely innocent of any wrongdoing"
origina post found herhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33923041
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