Former Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed has been jailed for five years and six months for sexually abusing two young children.
The 64-year-old was found guilty at Sheffield Crown Court in January of the attempted rape of a young girl and sexually assaulting a boy under 11 in the 1970s. The offences took placewhen Ahmed was a teenager in Rotherham.
The court heard that he attempted to rape a girl in the early 1970s, when the defendant was about 16 or 17 years old. the victim was much younger.
Ahmed was also found guilty of a serious sexual assault against a boy under 1 in the same time period.
Today, judge Mr Justice Lavender jailed Ahmed and said his actions had “profound and lifelong effects” on his victims.
A victim personal statement from the male complainant read in court said being sexually abused by three men had “affected me on a daily basis”.
He said: “ I feel shame because of what these men did to me. This is not about revenge, this is about justice.”
The victim of the attempted rapes read her own statement in court, saying: “An overwhelming feeling of shame remained with me throughout my childhood and early adult years.
“It was a burden I was made to carry, and it silenced me for many years.
“It is now time for me to pass that burden to him – the paedophile who I know feels no personal shame.”
Ahmed‘s two older brothers, Mohammed Farouq, 71, and Mohammed Tariq, 66, were also charged with indecent assault in relation to the same boy that Ahmed abused.
Both men were deemed unfit to stand trial, but a jury found that they committed the alleged acts.
Farouq and Tariq were both given absolute discharges after the judge said the only other two options – a hospital order or a supervision order – would not be appropriate in this case.
In sentencing, Mr Justice Lavender said: “Your actions have had profound and lifelong effects on the girl and the boy, who have lived with what you did to them for between 46 and 53 years.
“Their statements express more eloquently than I ever could how your actions have affected their lives in so many different and damaging ways.”
He jailed Ahmed for three and a half years for the offence of buggery, and imposed two concurrent sentences of two years for each of the attempted rapes.
In mitigation, Imran Khan QC said Ahmed had “devoted his life to public service” and that his “fall from grace” had been “in the full glare of publicity,” including a campaign for him to be stripped of his title.
Mr Khan said: “That very good reputation he had has gone.”
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 peer to be recommended for expulsion, but he resigned before this could be implemented.
