Vote stops action against peer accused of pressuring woman to have sex with him

A women’s rights campaigner has said she feels “victimised all over again” after the House of Lords voted to block the suspension of a Liberal Democrat peer who was found to have promised to make her a baroness if she agreed to sleep with him.

Jasvinder Sanghera, a long-time campaigner against forced marriage, told the Guardian she had no faith in anti-harassment efforts in the Lords after peers voted down the punishment imposed on Anthony Lester.

The privileges and conduct committee announced on Monday that Lord Lester would be suspended until June 2022 for sexual harassment and “corrupt inducements”, after three separate inquiries over a year.

The committee’s report said Lester told Sanghera: “If you sleep with me, I will make you a baroness within a year.”

The suspension, the longest for a peer or an MP since the second world war, required endorsement by the full Lords chamber. However, after a debate lasting two and a half hours, another peer and supporter of Lester, David Pannick, forced a vote.

He tabled an amendment to the report saying it should be sent back to the committee because it had not acted “in accordance with the principles of natural justice and fairness”. The vote was won by 101 to 78, stopping the suspension.

Sanghera, 53, said she felt the punishment had been blocked by “what I can only describe as the old boy network”.

She said: “I feel as if I’ve been victimised all over again, bullied and traduced. What I witnessed there today were many of Lord Lester’s friends, who declared that they were his friends, making representations on behalf of him. And I don’t think that was fair.

“This process has gone through three levels, all legal appeals were rejected, and today they’ve undermined the whole process and undermined the commissioner and me.

“More importantly, they’ve undermined victims. I’ve campaigned for victims for over 25 years, and I cannot sit here today and say with confidence [that] if you are a victim of sexual harassment and bullying from somebody in the House of Lords, then report it. I would actually say the opposite. I would not want to subject them to what I’ve been through.”

Lester, 82, who has denied the claims, objected to the process, saying it was wrong that he had been unable to cross-examine Sanghera’s evidence, whether directly or via a representative.

Lord Pannick, also a leading QC, made the argument in the debate that “you are entitled to cross-examine or have cross-examination conducted, of the person who accuses you”.

But Sanghera’s lawyers say they were surprised that Lester complained about the way the inquiry was handled only after it was over.

The alleged harassment is said to have taken place around 11 years ago, and Sanghera first reported it to parliamentary authorities in November 2017.

After an investigation by the Lords 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 the privileges and conduct committee upheld the conclusion, it opted for suspension, as the rule allowing expulsion was only introduced in 2015.

Sanghera told the inquiry that the harassment began after she attended a meeting at the Lords and missed her evening train. Lester suggested she stay at his London home.

He groped her thigh while driving her to the house and made suggestive remarks, she said. The next morning, when his wife had left, Lester chased Sanghera around the kitchen, she said.

It was at a later meeting at the Lords, she said, that Lester made the offer. She told the inquiry: “He even spelled it out, putting my surname in, and asked me how that sounded.”

The report said Sanghera, who was not named in the investigation but came forward afterwards, provided six witnesses, among them a judge, who were able to say she had described the events immediately after she said they had taken place.

John McFall, the senior deputy speaker in the Lords, said he was “deeply disappointed” in the vote, and the privileges and conduct committee would meet next week to decide the next step.

“I fully support the commissioner for standards and the work she has undertaken for many months. Every step of the way she followed the processes as agreed by the house and that have not been questioned before today. I would also like to express my sympathy to the complainant at what must be a very difficult time for her,” Lord McFall said.