Child sex abuser ex-Labour peer Nazir Ahmed sentence cut three years

Ex-Labour peer Nazir Ahmed, 65, has five-and-a-half year jail term for attempting to rape a young girl and sexually assaulting a boy in the 1970s cut by three years after appeal

  • Lord Ahmed’s sentence cut from 5 years 6 months to 2 years 6 months on appeal
  • He was convicted in 2022 of sexually abusing two children as teen in Rotherham

Ex-Labour peer Nazir Ahmed who was jailed for trying to rape a young girl and sexually assaulting a boy aged under 11 in the 1970s has had his sentence cut after an appeal.

Last year former politician Lord Ahmed was convicted of sexually abusing two children in Rotherham, south Yorkshire, when he was a teenager.

A judge had handed Ahmed, now 65, a jail term of five years and six months after a trial at Sheffield Crown Court.

But appeal judges cut that term by three years, to two years and six months after concluding that trial judge Mr Justice Lavender ‘fell into error’ when passing sentence.

Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice; Lord Justice Holroyde, and Lord Justice William Davis announced their decision on Friday after considering arguments at a recent Court of Appeal hearing in London in January.

Court of Appeal judges have cut three years off a jail term handed to ex-Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed (pictured outside Sheffield Crown Court in November 2021), 65, who was found guilty of trying to rape a young girl and sexually assaulting a boy aged under 11 in the 1970s

Former politician Lord Ahmed (pictured) had been convicted, in January 2022, of sexually abusing two children when he was a teenager in Rotherham, South Yorkshire

Ahmed had been found guilty of two counts of attempted rape and one of buggery.

A woman had told jurors that Ahmed attempted to rape her in the early 1970s, when he was about 16 or 17 but she was much younger.

Ahmed was also found guilty of a serious sexual assault against a boy under 11, also in the early 1970s.

Mr Justice Lavender had handed Ahmed a three-year, six-month term for the offence of buggery, and imposed sentences of two years for each of the attempted rapes.

READ MORE: Ex-Labour peer Nazir Ahmed, 64, is found GUILTY of attempting to rape a young girl and sexually assaulting a boy under 11 in the 1970s

 

He said the two attempted rape sentences would run concurrent to each other but be added to the buggery term – making a total of five years and six months.

Ahmed had challenged Mr Justice Lavender’s sentencing decision and appeal judges made a ruling in his favour.

Appeal judges cut the three-year, six-month term to six months, but said both two-year terms would remain – making a total of two years and six months.

They said the fact that Ahmed was a child when he committed offences had to be taken into account.

Appeal judges said if Ahmed had been sentenced shortly after committing the buggery offence, he would have been 14 – and a child with no previous convictions.

They concluded that ‘a custodial sentence of six months would probably have been regarded as a suitable penalty’.

But they took a different view in relation to the attempted rape sentences.

Appeal judges said the attempted rapes were offences by a teenager ‘against a very young victim’.

They made no criticism of Mr Justice Lavender’s reasoning in relation to the sentences imposed for the attempted rapes.

Appeal judges had considered legal issues relating to the ‘correct approach’ to sentencing an adult for an offence committed when they were a child.

They examined a number of cases, including Ahmed’s. Each case concerned sexual offending.

Appeal judges said none of the victims could be identified in media reports.

Source: Read Full Article

Previous post South Park's latest episode 'Deep Learning' was co-written by ChatGPT
Next post Another 100 migrants beat asylum ban deadline to arrive in Dover