Lord Lester reprieve ‘felt like bullying’
THE women’s rights campaigner who accused Lord Lester of sexual harassment said she felt “re-victimised” as she watched peers block his ban from Parliament.
The Lords privileges and conduct committee recommended on Monday that Lord Lester of Herne Hill, 82, should be suspended until 2022 for allegedly telling Jasvinder Sanghera: “If you sleep with me, I will make you a baroness within a year.”
On Thursday, she watched peers block the ban, voting 101 votes to 78 to send the case back to the committee for a rethink – a move she described as “wholly wrong”.
She told the Today programme: “Sitting there watching the vote, for me personally, felt like I was being subjected to being bullied from afar.
“Yet again, I felt re-victimised. It was disheartening to hear members of the House of Lords straining to discuss me as an individual, what I did, what I didn’t do. And nobody in that room, actually very few – sorry, forgive me – talked about the real issue here. The issues of sexual harassment and bullying, and certainly did not discuss the impact on me.
“Lord Lester had the advantage of lobbying his friends and his peers. Each stood up and declared their interest of being his friend. They were the ones that could have a say in deciding the vote. That was wholly unfair.”
Having seemingly listened to Ms Sanghera’s appearance on the BBC Radio 4 radio show, Amber Rudd, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, called her a “fearless” protector of women.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill said he now looked forward to “restoring his reputation” which had been shredded after the Lords privileges and conduct committee recommended his four-year suspension, which would have been the longest period for a peer or MP since the Second World War.
Ms Sanghera, 53, who has waived her right to anonymity, accused Lord Lester of telling her that if she slept with him she would be a baroness.
The prominent QC has strongly denied the allegations, saying they are “completely untrue”.
But an inquiry found that Lord Lester had sexually harassed Ms Sanghera and offered her “corrupt inducements” to sleep with him.
Amid claims that the investigation was “manifestly unfair”, peers insisted that his alleged victim should have been cross-examined to test the credibility of claims, dating back to 2007.