Tony Blair did not deem child sexual abuse allegations a reason to prevent Lord Janner, the former Labour MP, receiving a peerage, an inquiry heard. Lord Janner died in 2015 under suspicion of 22 counts of child sexual abuse dating back to the Sixties. The long-serving politician always denied the allegations made by Frank Beck, a care home boss accused of sexual and physical assaults on dozens of children, during his 1991 abuse trial. Beck was jailed for life and died in prison three years later, while Lord Janner was not charged until 2015. Yesterday Mr Blair said he “would have known” about the claims made against Lord Janner when putting his name forward for a peerage in 1997, weeks after he swept to power. But the former prime minister told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse he was also aware that the allegations had been investigated by police and that Lord Janner “vigorously denied” them. Lord Janner was made a peer shortly after stepping down as an MP for Leicester West.
