Lord Nazir found guilty of sexual assault but will appeal

LONDON: Lord Nazir Ahmed has announced that he will be appealing against the conviction announced by a jury at the Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday over eight counts of alleged sexual offences.

A legal representative of Lord Nazir expressed surprise at the verdict and said that the verdicts have gone completely against the evidence presented before the jury during the trial at the Sheffield Crown Court. He said: “We have instructed our lawyers to appeal against the conviction.”

The court announced that Lord Nazir has been found guilty of trying to rape a girl when he was a teenager in the 1970s when Lord Nazir and the teenager who was his first cousin were in early teens, over five decades ago.

Lord Nazir was also convicted of a serious sexual assault against a boy during the same period – the teen in this case also Lord Nazir’s first cousin. Jurors at the Sheffield Crown Court were told the "repeated sexual abuse" happened in Rotherham over several years. The 64-year-old British Kashmiri politician has denied the charges and said he has been targeted.

Judge Mr Justice Lavender will decide later when Lord Nazir is sentenced. At the start of the trial, prosecutor Tom Little QC told the court Lord Nazir had attempted to rape the girl in the early 1970s, when the defendant was aged 16 or 17.