AN ASIAN peer has been charged with sexually assaulting two children, a boy and a girl, under 13.
Lord Nazir Ahmed of Rotherham has been charged with two counts of attempted rape and one count of indecent assault.
The 61-year-old is alleged to have committed the offences when he was a teenager in Rotherham in the 1970s.
According to The Times, Lord Ahmed is alleged to have indecently assaulted a boy in 1971-72, when he was 14 or 15. He is also accused of two attempted rapes in 1973-74 aged 16 or 17.
Two other men - Mohammed Farouq, 68, and Mohammed Tariq, 63 - have also been charged. All three are due to appear at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on March 19.
Lord Ahmed was born in Pakistan and moved to the UK in 1969. He joined the Labour Party in 1975 aged 18 and became a councillor in Rotherham in 1990.
In 1998, the then-prime minister Tony Blair appointed Lord Ahmed to the House of Lords, making him one of the first Muslim peers.
Helios by artist Luke Jerram