The former Labour peer Nazir Ahmed has been jailed for five years and six months after being convicted of sexual offences against two children in the 1970s.
The 64-year-old, who quit the House of Lords but retains the title Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, was found guilty at Sheffield crown court in January of serious sexual assault against a boy aged 11 at the time, and twice attempting to rape a girl, when he was a teenager.
On Friday, Mr Justice Lavender told Ahmed: “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.”
The survivor of the attempted rapes read her own victim personal 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 abused by Ahmed. Both men were deemed unfit to stand trial, but a jury found that they carried out the acts alleged.
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.
A victim personal statement from the male complainant read in court said being sexually abused by the three men had “affected me on a daily basis” and left him unable to show affection to his own children.
He said: “I buried the abuse and carried it with me on my own for years and years. I feel shame because of what these men did to me. This is not about revenge, this is about justice.”
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.
The judge said that according to legal guidelines, the sentence must be in line with what would have been imposed at the time the offence was committed.
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. Buggery was the legal term for the specific sexual assault at the time of the offences.
Lavender also adjourned the case for six weeks to determine whether Ahmed could pay prosecution costs.
During the trial, the prosecutor Tom Little QC said Ahmed claimed the allegations were a “malicious fiction” but a recording of a 2016 phone conversation between the two victims showed they were not “made up or concocted”.
Appointed a life peer by Tony Blair, Ahmed resigned from the Labour party in 2013.
He then resigned from the House of Lords in November 2020 after a conduct committee report 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.
The male victim, known as Mr B to protect his anonymity, told BBC Newsnight on Thursday that Ahmed should be stripped of his title, which can be done only by an act of parliament.
“That title is bestowed upon people that have got some honour, some dignity, and he’s got none of that,” he said. “I’m demanding the government take that peerage away from him.”
The House of Lords confirmed that, as the title is created by letters patent from the Queen, it has no power to remove it and legislation would therefore be needed to strip Ahmed of it.
