On 17 February 2026, the High Court of Justice handed down a judgment that it would not be equitable to disapply the limitation period in respect of claims arising from alleged physical and sexual abuse taking place at a children's home.
Patrick Williams, Associate Solicitor in the Keoghs Specialist Abuse team, discusses the decision in AB & Ors v Leicestershire County Council [2026] EWHC 331 (KB) and considers the relevant issues against the background of the forthcoming changes to limitation law for child sexual abuse claims in England & Wales.
The three claimants each alleged that in the 1980s they were the victims of physical and sexual abuse at The Beeches Children’s Home, Leicester Forest East (‘the Beeches’), by Mr Frank Beck, who was the officer in charge of the home, and Mr Greville Janner MP (as he then was), who is alleged to have been a frequent visitor.
The defendant denied that the claimants were victims of the alleged abuse and that the claims were statute barred.
Mr Beck was a former marine and had worked in children’s homes in Leicestershire since 1973. In November 1991 he was convicted of 17 offences including buggery and rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in prison in May 1994.
Mr Janner was called to the Bar in 1954 and was elected MP for the constituency of Leicester North West in 1970 and for Leicester West from 1974 until 1997. Allegations of sexual abuse against him began to slowly accumulate over a very long period of time, but it was not until 2015 that he was charged with 22 counts of indecent assault and buggery against young complainants between 1963 and 1988. Mr Janner died in December 2015 before his trial had begun and therefore was never convicted.
AB
It was alleged by AB that on a number of occasions he disclosed the abuse to his social worker, but she told him to stop being silly. He also alleges that he told the police about the abuse when on various occasions they picked him up after he absconded from the Beeches but he was not believed.
Further, AB was interviewed by the police in October 1990 and provided a statement in respect of Mr Beck’s physical and sexual assaults on other children at the Beeches but did not mention any assaults against him. It was not until 2015 that he disclosed the assaults against him to the police.
Wayne Phillips
Mr Phillips alleged that he reported only the physical abuse to his social worker at the time, and to the police either when he was arrested or had absconded from the Beeches, but he says nothing ever came of it. When he was approached by the police in May 1990 in respect of their investigation into Mr Beck, he reported the physical abuse but not the sexual abuse. It further appears that around this time he made a successful claim in respect of the physical abuse alleged against Mr Beck. It was not until July 2015 when he himself was serving a custodial sentence at HMP Ryehill that he disclosed to police the alleged sexual assaults at the Beeches.
Timothy Betteridge
Mr Betteridge previously brought a claim against the defendant alleging that he was sexually and physically abused by Mr Beck when he was at the Beeches. The defendant admitted liability and settled his claim in 1996. Therefore, this claim related only to additional sexual abuse alleged to have been committed against him by Mr Janner. It appears that he first reported the alleged sexual abuse by Mr Janner to police in 2015 when others were making complaints against him.
Mr Justice Turner acknowledged the presence of the Crime and Policing Bill presently before Parliament but made clear that the limitation issue was to be determined in accordance with the law as it presently stood.
In his judgment, the death of Mr Janner was considered to have a significant impact on the cogency of evidence as a whole, which was 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. He also considered the length of the delay in bringing these claims (up to 45 years) to be considerable.
Accordingly, having regard to the delay, the evidence adduced or likely to be adduced by the claimant or the defendant was less cogent than if the action had been brought within the time allowed. In particular:
Having taken all of the above into account, Mr Justice Turner concluded that in respect of all claims by all three claimants against both Mr Beck and Mr Janner that it would not be equitable to disapply the primary limitation period and allow their claims to proceed.
The Crime and Policing Bill includes a proposal to remove the three-year limitation period for personal injury claims arising from child sexual abuse and to reverse the burden of proof for the defendant to have to show that a fair hearing would not be possible.
While the judge in AB & Ors v Leicestershire was required to assess the claim on the current law, considering the specific factors of this case and the judge’s findings, it would seem very likely the outcome on limitation would still have been the same.
Defendants already have an evidential burden to discharge to show that a fair trial is no longer possible. While under the proposed law, the claimant could not be criticised for the length of the delay itself, the effect of that delay will remain a significant factor to demonstrate that a fair hearing cannot take place. In this respect, as illustrated in this case, relevant factors to be considered when determining whether a fair hearing can take place will undoubtedly rely upon common law factors as illustrated in Murray and FXF to include the deaths of the alleged perpetrators, the nature and extent of previous disclosures of the alleged abuse, or in the alternative where no previous disclosure is made despite having the opportunity to do so, the impact of delay upon the cogency of both the claimant and defendant evidence, the availability and recollection of witness evidence so long after the alleged events, and the absence of contemporaneous records.
It follows that limitation remains and is likely to remain a valid defence in appropriate cases where the effect of delay severely prejudices a fair hearing taking place.
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