- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Pramod Thomas
A FORMER Labour peer repeatedly sexually abused two younger children in 1970s when he was a teenager, a court heard on Wednesday(17).
Nazir Ahmed, 63, formerly Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, is on trial at Sheffield crown court where he denies two counts of attempting to rape a girl under 16, indecent assault of a boy under 14 and raping a boy under 16, reported The Guardian.
Ahmed dismissed the allegations as ‘malicious fiction’. He is on trial alongside his brothers, Mohammed Farouq and Mohammed Tariq, who have both been charged with indecent assault of a boy under 14, the report added.
They were not in the dock after the judge ruled they were not fit to stand trial, but the jury was told it would still have to determine if they had committed the alleged acts.
During the trial, Tom Little QC said that allegations of repeated sexual abuse took place over a number of years, with the victims being too young to stop it at the time.
According to the report, the complainants only went to the police in 2016, more than 40 years after the alleged assaults took place.
The woman went to South Yorkshire police first, followed by the man 12 days later. The two then spoke on the phone and the woman recorded the call. The court heard the recording, in which the man accused that Ahmed and his two brothers abused him.
According to The Guardian report, Little told the court the recording was evidence that the man went to the police independently of the woman and without her knowledge.
Besides, Ahmed was accused of abusing a young primary school-aged child when the defendant was under 14, but is not charged with doing so because the law at the time said under-14s were not capable of rape or attempted rape.
The law was changed in 1993 but Ahmed can only be prosecuted according to the law at the time.
When first interviewed under caution by police in May 2016, Ahmed answered ‘no comment’ to every question. In September 2016, he was more forthcoming and denied the allegations, Little told the court.
The trial is expected to last three weeks. The defendants have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
