Lord Ahmed found guilty of child sex offences after trial in Sheffield
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Nazir Ahmed was found guilty today at Sheffield Crown Court of attempting to rape a young girl when he was a teenager in the 1970s.
Ahmed, aged 64, was also found guilty of a serious sexual assault against a boy under 11, also in the early 1970s.
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Hide AdAhmed, a former member of the House of Lords, was created a life peer in 1998 on the recommendation of the then Prime Minister Tony Blair. Ahmed sat in the House until he resigned in 2020.
Ahmed, formerly Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, stood trial in Sheffield for offences dating back more than 40 years.
A woman told jurors that Ahmed attempted to rape her in the early 1970s, when the defendant was about 16 or 17 years old but she was much younger.
The former politician was also found guilty of a serious sexual assault against a boy under 11, also in the early 1970s.
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Hide AdThe jury was played a recording of a telephone call between the two complainants, made by the woman after she went to the police in 2016.
Tom Little QC, prosecuting, told the jury that the call was prompted by the man contacting the woman by email saying: “I have evidence against that paedophile.”
Ahmed, who denied all the charges, was found guilty of two counts of attempted rape and one of buggery.
The former Labour peer 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.
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Hide AdThe report made him the first peer to be recommended for expulsion but he resigned before this could be implemented.
Ahmed was charged along with his two older brothers, Mohammed Farouq, 71, and Mohammed Tariq, 65, but both these men were deemed unfit to stand trial.
Farouq and Tariq faced charges of indecent assault in relation to the same boy that Ahmed abused and today the jury found that they did the acts alleged.
The conviction of Ahmed follows a tortuous prosecution, which included the halting of a previous trial by a judge who bemoaned the antiquity of the allegations.
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Hide AdBut Judge Jeremy Richardson QC said his decision to stop the original trial in March was due to failings in disclosing evidence which had “sabotaged” the proceedings rather than his misgiving over the length of time that had elapsed.
At a hearing earlier in the prosecution, Judge Richardson had noted that some of the then alleged incidents happened in the late 1960s when Harold Wilson was prime minister, Lyndon Johnson was the US president and the Vietnam War was raging.
In March the judge took the unusual step of ordering a permanent stay on proceedings, bringing the prosecution to a close.
But the Crown Prosecution Service appealed against this decision and it was overturned by the Court of Appeal in June, paving the way for the new trial.