Lib Dem peer Lord Lester suspended over sexual harassment

Report found Anthony Lester promised to make a woman a baroness if she slept with him

Peter Walker Political correspondent

Lord Lester’s suspension, until June 2022, would be the longest since the second world war.A Liberal Democrat peer has been suspended from the House of Lords for almost four years after a committee found he tried to pressure a woman into having sex with him by promising to make her a baroness, threatening repercussions if she refused.Anthony Lester, a human rights barrister and former government adviser who has been a peer since 1993, will be suspended until June 2022, the privileges and conduct committee said.If the Lords upholds the punishment, it would be the longest suspension handed to either a peer or an MP since the second world war.A report from the committee, published on Monday, found Lord Lester, 82, told the unnamed complainant, who is described as an expert in her field: “If you sleep with me, I will make you a baroness within a year.”

The woman told the inquiry that Lester, who has been suspended from the Lib Dems and resigned the party whip earlier this year, said if she refused, “he would see to it I never had a seat in the House of Lords, and warned me there would be other repercussions for me”.
She also said after she turned him down, he stopped inviting her to relevant meetings. The behaviour amounted to “a grave abuse of power in the performance of his parliamentary duties”, the committee said.
Following an original investigation by Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, the upper house’s commissioner for standards, the subcommittee on lords’ conduct recommended Lester be expelled, the first time such action would have been taken.
However, Lester appealed, and while separate privileges and conduct committee upheld the conclusion, it opted for a punishment of suspension, as the rule allowing expulsion was introduced in 2015, after the offence, which took place 12 years ago.
The suspension was imposed due to sexual harassment and “corrupt inducements” by Lester, the committee said.
Scott-Moncrieff’s report into the claims, first made by the woman in November 2017, concluded that on the balance of probabilities they were credible.
The complainant said the harassment began after she attended a meeting at the Lords and had missed her evening train. Lester suggested she stay at his London home, and that his wife would be there.
When driving her to his home, she said “he kept repeatedly missing the gear stick with his hand and instead very firmly placed his hand on my right thigh”, behaviour she objected to.
After he made more suggestive remarks, she slept with her bedroom door barred with a chair, calling a friend to describe her worries. The next morning, when his wife had left, the woman said Lester put his arms round her waist and chased her around the kitchen.
It was at a later meeting at the Lords, she said, that Lester made the offer, the woman said, offering to make her a peer.
She told the inquiry: “He even spelled it out, putting my surname in, and asked me how that sounded. I responded immediately without hesitation by saying that if I were ever to become a member of the House of Lords, it had to be purely on merit.”
The report said the woman provided six witnesses, among them a judge, who were able to say she described the events happening immediately after they took place. One of them was the friend she phoned from Lester’s house.
The peer provided four of his own witnesses, among them his wife, who said they had never seen Lester acting inappropriately.
On Lester, the committee report said: “The tragic irony of this case is that for decades past the respondent has been one of the most widely known, effective and admired of those campaigning for racial and sexual equality in this country, a renowned supporter of human rights and freedoms across the board.”
In a statement released after the suspension was announced Lester maintained that the allegations were “completely untrue”, saying he had produced evidence that demonstrated this was the case.
He added: “There has to be a fair process for investigating sexual harassment claims in parliament. Parliament is supposed to be a bastion of the rule of law but has ignored calls to reform this procedure properly for 20 years. I hope to be judged by my work over decades for gender equality, race relations and free speech.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/12/anthony-lester-lib-dem-peer-suspended-house-of-lords-sexual-harassment

NWN: This 'character' has been involved in so much of the 'race relations industry law' turning the UK into a multi-racial madhouse . And just like yet another who is also jewish, his comrade Lord Greville Janner who was also instrumental in drafting race relations laws in favour of immigrants, he is also at the centre of sex crime allegations.

These are two of the central figures who usually having fled Nazi Germany, immediately set about making the UK into a 'multi-racial country'. Without even asking the indigenous British people whether they agreed to their country being irrevocably altered and changed. Lester was also acting against white people in South Africa and the USA, before his 'meddling in the UK'. See below.

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Anthony Lester, Baron Lester of Herne Hill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Right Honourable The Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC
Lord Lester of Herne Hill's official parliamentary photo
Personal details
Born	3 July 1936 (age 82)
Nationality	British
Occupation	Politician, lawyer

Anthony Paul Lester, Baron Lester of Herne Hill, QC (born 3 July 1936) is a British barrister and politician, sitting in the House of Lords as a non-affiliated peer.^[1]

Contents

• 1 Early life and education
• 2 Legal career
  • 2.1 Race relations
  • 2.2 Special adviser
  • 2.3 Family Planning Association
  • 2.4 Peerage
• 3 Styles of address
• 4 Personal life
• 5 References
• 6 External links

Early life and education

Lester was born into a Jewish family^[2] and was educated at the City of London School. He then studied history and law at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Harvard Law School, graduating with Bachelor of Arts and Master of Laws degrees respectively.^[3]

Legal career

Lester was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1963^[3] and took silk in 1975.^[4] In 1987, he was appointed to be a recorder^[5][6][7] and was in office until 1993.^[3] As a barrister he works from Blackstone Chambers. He was appointed adjunct professor of the Faculty of Law at University College Cork in 2005.

Race relations

In the 1960s and 1970s Lester was directly involved with the drafting of race relations legislation in Britain. During these periods, he acted as the chair of the legal subcommittee of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (C.A.R.D.) and was a member of several organisations working for racial equality such as the Society of Labour Lawyers, Fabian Society, Council of the Institute of Race Relations, British Overseas Socialist Fellowship and the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants.^[8] In 1968, he co-founded the Runnymede Trust think-tank with Jim Rose. He was chairman of the Runnymede Trust from 1991 to 1993. 
Eliot Joseph Benn "Jim" Rose (7 June 1909 – 21 May 1999) was a British intelligence officer, journalist and campaigner.
Born into an "elite" Jewish family, Rose was educated at Rugby School and New College, Oxford.^[1]

Special adviser

He was a special adviser to Roy Jenkins at the Home Office in the 1970s, and moved with Jenkins from the Labour Party to found the SDP in 1981. On 29 June 2007, Lester was appointed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a special adviser on constitutional reform to the Secretary of State for Justice.^[9] Lester is a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Lester,_Baron_Lester_of_Herne_Hill 

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Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC

How did you first become interested in human rights?
I became involved with human rights while at Cambridge in the late 50s as part of the struggle against Apartheid, and then at Harvard Law School in the early 60s and in the Deep South during the long hot summer of 1964 (writing a book for Amnesty International).
When did you first start actively to campaign for some form of legislation on human rights in the UK?
I became actively involved in the UK when called to the Bar in 1964. I helped set up CARD (the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination) and was legal adviser on the lobby for effective legislation to tackle that social evil. I am still campaigning for effective equality legislation.

https://justice.org.uk/lord-lester-herne-hill-qc/