Lord Nazir Ahmed retires just as his sordid history catches up with him resulting in the first-ever expulsion of a peer in the history of the House of Lords.
The House of Lords Conduct Committee has published a report on Lord Nazir Ahmed of Rotherham, concluding for the first time ever that a peer should be expelled. The report finds Lord Ahmed to have breached the Code of Conduct for “failing to act on his personal honour” over sexual assault and exploitation. Ahmed, who has a history of controversial incidents both in his career and personal life, announced his retirement on 14 November after having seen the report. Further controversially he announced his retirement only to Pakistani news outlets, keeping silent in the UK.
His sudden retirement is an obvious attempt to escape justice, meaning he does not lose his title & has the legal right to return if he changes his mind.
The report details how Tahira Zaman, “was put in contact with Lord Ahmed to help her make a complaint to the Metropolitan Police about a faith healer”.
After offering to help, Lord Ahmed was found to have used his position to:
- Sexually assault the complainant on 2 March 2017
- Lie to the complainant about his intentions to help her
- Exploit the complainant emotionally and sexually despite knowing she was vulnerable
The Commissioner also found that Lord Ahmed failed to cooperate with her investigation and instead attempted to discredit Ms Zaman’s evidence through “denial and dishonesty”. The Committee noted that at no point in the process did Lord Ahmed show any remorse or take any responsibility for any aspect of his conduct towards the complainant.
The allegations of sexual misconduct were first brought to light in a BBC Newsnight investigation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHRxoFrIC7M). It was reported that there are many women he has taken advantage of, but most unwilling to come forward due to fear and community honour.
Ahmed’s conduct, particularly his dishonesty and lack of cooperation towards the investigating committee, is a key part of the report. Exploitation, sexual assault, lack of integrity, deliberately inaccurate, misleading accounts, lying about his intentions, deception, acting without honesty or integrity, risk of repetition, just a small list of damning condemnations in the report.
Due to the severe nature of his misconduct, the only recommendation the committee could make was expulsion. The full report can be found here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5801/ldselect/ldcond/170/170.pdf
Ahmed has a history of controversial and often criminal acts in his career:
Attempted rape and indecent assault charges
He is due to stand trial in January 2021 facing charges of historical child sexual abuse along with two of his brothers. Ahmed has been charged with two counts of attempted rape and one count of indecent assault, whilst his brothers have also been charged on multiple indecent assault charges against two children, a boy and a girl. The accusations date back to the early ’70s.
In what is surely a miscarriage of justice, the court at the last hearing has declared his brothers now aged 63 and 68, would not be able to recall that far back, and therefore will not face trial.
Fatal road crash
On Christmas Day 2007 Lord Nazir Ahmed killed 28-year-old Martin Gombar, a husband and young father of two. Ahmed sent & received messages whilst driving, before his Jaguar smashed into a stationary Audi killing its driver. He was jailed for 12 weeks, but freed after serving just 16 days when the Court of Appeal suspended his sentence because of “exceptional” mitigation relating to his community work. He later lied about this and told the media his sentence had been overturned, blaming his original prison sentence on a Jewish conspiracy.
Ref: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/feb/25/lord-ahmed-dangerous-driving
Anti-Semitism and Labour Party Suspension
Lord Nazir was caught on camera saying that his dangerous driving case was not serious and was made critical by the Jewish community, who control the media through their television channels and newspapers, by pressuring and influencing the courts.
He was due to appear before the Labour National Executive Committee for his antisemitic remarks, but to pre-empt his expulsion from the party, which can clearly be seen in The Times video, he resigned from the party two days beforehand.
Other anti-semitic incidents
- In 2005, Ahmed hosted a book launch in the House of Lords for neo-Nazi holocaust denier Israel Shamir, who frequently uses anti-Semitic language in his work.
- In 2009, Ahmed, along with several extremist British Islamists, signed a letter praising the anti-Jewish Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan after he walked out of a debate with President Shimon Peres at the Davos Conference in Switzerland.
- In 2009, in an interview on Iranian Press TV, Ahmed said that British Jews who served in the Israeli army should be arrested and charged with war crimes.