Lord Nazir Ahmed jailed for child sex offences - EuropenewsOk

A disgraced peer has been jailed for more than five years after he was found guilty of attempting to rape a young girl and sexually assault a boy under 11 in the 1970s.

In January, former politician Lord Nazir Ahmed was found guilty of sexually abusing two children as a teenager in Rotherham.

The 64-year-old, who retains his title of Lord Ahmed of Rotherham despite quitting the House of Lords, was found guilty of two counts of attempted rape and one count of aggravated sexual assault.

At Sheffield Crown Court, a woman told a jury how Ahmed tried to rape her in the early 1970s, when the accused was about 16 or 17 years old, but she was much younger.

Ahmed was also convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a boy under 11, also in the early 1970s.

On Friday, Judge Lavender sentenced Ahmed to five years and six months in prison.

The judge told Ahmed: “Your actions have had a profound and lifelong impact on girls and boys who have lived with what you have done to them for 46 to 53 years.

“Their statements are more eloquent than I have ever been on how your actions affect their lives in so many different and destructive ways.”

The attempted rape victim, who read her personal statement in court, said: “Through my childhood and early adulthood, an overwhelming sense of shame was with me.

“It was a burden I was forced to carry and it silenced me for many years.

“It’s time for me to pass the burden on him – the paedophiles I know don’t feel any shame.”

She added that Ahmed was now “publicly humiliated” for his actions.

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Ahmed’s two older brothers, Mohammad Farooq, 71, and Mohammad Tariq, 66, were also charged with molesting the same boy Ahmed abused.

Both men were deemed unfit to stand trial, but the jury found them guilty of the alleged conduct.

They were both granted absolute discharge after the judge said the only two other options were inappropriate in the circumstances – a hospital order or a supervision order.

The victim’s personal statement read in court by the male complainant said being sexually assaulted by the three men “affected me every day”, preventing him from expressing love for his children.

He said: “I buried the abuse and carried it all by myself for years.

“I’m ashamed of what these people have done to me.

“This is not revenge, but justice.”

As a relief, Imran Khan QC said Ahmed had “dedicated his life to public service” and that his “falls from grace” had been “in the public eye”, including a campaign that saw him stripped of his title.

“His good name is gone,” Mr Khan said.

The judge said that under the law, the sentence must be the same as the sentence at the time of the crime, and Ahmed was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for aggravated sexual assault, with two concurrent two-year sentences for each attempted rape case.

Judge Lavender also adjourned the case for six weeks to determine whether Ahmed can pay the prosecution.

During the trial, the jury played a recording of a phone call between the two complainants, made by the woman after she called the police in 2016.

Prosecuting Tom Little QC told the jury the call was made by the man who emailed the woman saying: “I have evidence against that paedophile.”

Former Labour member Ahmed resigned from the House of Lords in November 2020 after reading the contents of a conduct committee report which found he sexually assaulted a vulnerable woman who sought his help.

The report made him the first of his peers to be recommended for dismissal, but he resigned before doing so.

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