Lawyers have called for an overhaul of the honours forfeiture system after it emerged that a sex abuser retained an honour bestowed for services to the Queen some three years after a court recognised him as a paedophile.
The system is too slow to acknowledge an offender’s offences, say lawyers specialising in abuse claims, and, in the case of those who have died, cannot strip them of their honours, leaving victims feeling that they have been cheated of justice.
Hubert Chesshyre, 78, an expert on heraldry and genealogy, held a number of senior positions within the royal household, rising to become secretary of the most noble order of the garter, the highest order in British chivalry. Among the many honours bestowed upon him over more than 40 years were the Queen’s Silver and Golden Jubilee Medals, and the commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) – the latter for distinguished personal service to the monarch. A fellow or member of several illustrious organisations and charities, he was a heraldic consultant to the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Lord Sugar and Sir Terry Pratchett.
But it recently emerged during the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) that in 2015 Chesshyre was found to have sexually abused a teenage chorister during the 1990s, a fact that has remained buried from public record. This is because Chesshyre’s case did not result in a criminal conviction. Rather, the inquiry heard “he was found to have committed the acts in question” in a trial of the facts.
These are held when the accused is deemed unfit to plead. The court recognised that Chesshyre had suffered a stroke. It was also said that he had dementia. As a result, despite being found to have committed the abuse, he was given an absolute discharge.
The fact that Chesshyre’s name was misspelled throughout the trial, despite repeated police efforts to have it corrected, has made it difficult to identify him in legal databases.
His victim told the Observer that he believed there may have been others. “I know of other boys from the choir where their parents became concerned and stopped Mr Chesshyre from having anything more to do with them.”
Chesshyre’s case is similar to that of Lord Janner, who was also accused of sexual abuse. Suffering from dementia, Janner was due to undergo a similar trial of the facts but this was dropped after his death in 2015.
In October 2015, Chesshyre’s victim wrote to Sir Alan Reid, secretary of the Royal Victorian Order, calling for forfeiture of Chesshyre’s honour. Reid replied that this would be wrong because Chesshyre had been given an absolute discharge, and no conviction registered. Reid’s position was mirrored by that of several organisations. The Heraldry Society said that it had no plans to remove his fellowship, in an email seen by the Observer.
In another email to the victim, the Society of Antiquaries of London said it would not put the question of his removal to the fellows of the society. The Bach Choir said it was “not incumbent” on it to take any further action as Chesshyre, an associate member, had no involvement with it any more. The Corporation of London emailed the victim to tell him it did not have the power to remove Chesshyre’s status as a Freeman of the City of London. The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies continues to list Hubert Chesshyre CVO as a vice-president.
It was only after the victim contacted his MP, who took it up with the prime minister, that the honour was eventually forefeited. But the victim only learned of this action in October 2018, five months after it happened and three years after Chesshyre’s trial. He was dismayed to learn via a Cabinet Office email that the forefeiture would not be published in the London Gazette, a standard procedure.
The case has led to calls for the honours forfeiture system to be reformed, an issue recently discussed at the IICSA. “A significant overhaul is necessary to ensure that any person who has been found to have committed acts of abuse on children has any and all honorific titles automatically removed, whether or not they are still alive,” said Andrew Lord, abuse solicitor at the law firm Leigh Day. “Survivors of abuse deserve to be safe in the knowledge that when crimes committed against them are proven, any benefits or prestige conveyed to the holder of an honorary title are swiftly removed in a clear and transparent process.”
As of Saturday night, Chesshyre’s Wikipedia page made no mention of his trial. When approached by the Observer, the various societies of which he is a member confirmed that they would not be dissociating themselves from him. The victim said: “As far as most people are concerned, he’s still Hubert Chesshyre CVO.”
