Ex-Labour peer to face trial on child sex charges

A CONTROVERSIAL former Labour peer has been charged with three alleged sex attacks on children.

Baron Ahmed of Rotherham, 61, is to stand trial accused of two attempted rapes and an indecent assault. His alleged victims were a girl and a boy aged under 13.

The attacks are said to have taken place in Rotherham in the 1970s, when the married father-of-three was a teenager.

Two other men are facing criminal charges in connection with the case, which was investigated by South Yorkshire Police. The inquiry was launched after officers received allegations in 2016 about child sex offences in Rotherham four decades earlier.

Lord Ahmed, who was born in Pakistancontrolled Kashmir, became one of the first Muslims to enter the Lords when he was made a peer by Tony Blair in 1998, but now sits as a non-affiliated member.

In 2013, he resigned from the Labour Party over allegations that he made antiSemitic comments in a television interview.

Lord Ahmed, pictured, stepped down before he was due to appear before Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee to answer accusations that he blamed a Jewish conspiracy for his 2009 imprisonment for dangerous driving. He had previously been suspended from the party amid reports that he blamed his prison sentence – for sending text messages shortly before his car was involved in a fatal crash – on pressure placed on the courts by Jews ‘who own newspapers and TV channels’.

The Muslim peer allegedly told an Urdulanguage broadcaster in Pakistan that the judge who jailed him for 12 weeks was appointed to the High Court after helping a ‘Jewish colleague’ of Mr Blair.

Lord Ahmed has been charged with indecently assaulting a boy aged under 13 in 1971-72. He is alleged to have committed the two attempted rapes, at least one of which is reported to have been against a girl, in 1973-74.

His co-accused – both from Rotherham – are Mohamed Farooq, 68, who faces four charges of indecent assault, and Mohammed Tariq, 63, who is charged with two indecent assaults. The alleged offences were against a boy aged under 13.

Police said the three men are due to appear before Sheffield magistrates on March 19.