Peer, 82, who ‘offered to make woman a baroness if she’d sleep with him’
A DISGRACED peer faces being kicked out of the House of Lords for four years after offering to make a woman a baroness in return for sex.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill, 82, was found to have sexually harassed the unnamed victim and offered her “corrupt inducements” to sleep with him.
He is expected to be barred from the Lords until June 2022 – the longest suspension in modern parliamentary history – after peers voted on the recommendation on Thursday.
The QC and architect of the UK’s race relations laws, who has been suspended from the Liberal Democrats, became “obsessively attracted” to the woman and persisted in “unwanted touching”.
He insists the allegations, which date back more than a decade, are “completely untrue”.
In a statement, the woman said she accepted an offer to stay with Lord Lester and his wife at their London home after missing a train late at night.
Driving her to his house, he “kept repeatedly missing the gearstick” and placed his hand on her thigh, she said.
“He continued to grope my thigh for the length of the journey, despite my protests,” she told Lords Commissioner for Standards Lucy Scott-Moncrieff.
The woman barricaded herself in a bedroom that night by wedging the door with a chair and was “pursued” around the kitchen the next day.
She said on another occasion, the peer said: “If you sleep with me, I will make you a baroness within a year”.
Lord Lester warned she would face “repercussions” if she refused to become his mistress, she said.
“He said that if I was a ‘good girl’ and did what he was asking, I would be in the House of Lords and could visit his house abroad with him,” she told the commissioner.
“He made a number of further inappropriate sexual comments to me such as that he could see me becoming a demanding mistress. I was distressed and shocked by his behaviour.”
The woman said did not complain at the time because her word against Lord Lester’s was “not an equal contest”.
Lord Lester was found to have breached the code of conduct and a group of peers that looks at conduct matters found his actions constituted a “grave abuse of power” and recommended he should be expelled.
But the Privileges and Conduct Committee decided that as there was no power of expulsion when the incidents happened, the punishment should be changed to a lengthy suspension.
The committee said: “Lord Lester made a dishonourable promise backed by a dishonourable threat.”
Lord Lester said: “These allegations are completely untrue. I produced evidence which clearly demonstrated that what I was said to have done 12 years ago did not happen.
“Independent counsel who previously advised the committee on its procedures provided an advice which concluded that the investigation was flawed. I regret the committee’s conclusions in the light of these materials.”