Lord Lester harassment accuser urges others to speak out

A campaigner against forced marriage has urged potential victims of sexual harassment in parliament to come forward, after she was revealed to be the woman at the centre of claims against the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Lester.

Jasvinder Sanghera, the founder of the charity Karma Nirvana, waived her anonymity to speak about the alleged incident in an interview with the Times on Tuesday.

“I was acutely aware of the power imbalance. If I’d said anything, who would believe me?” she said, adding she had been convinced by the #MeToo movement that “by speaking out, victims were creating a climate in which people were more willing to listen”.

The House of Lords privileges and conduct committee has recommended that Lester, a human rights barrister who has been a peer since 1993, be suspended until June 2022 after it found he offered Sanghera “corrupt inducements to become his mistress”. He denies all the claims against him.

Sanghera said they met 11 years ago and Lester had offered her a peerage within a year in exchange for sex, and threatened recriminations if she refused.

Her lawyer, David Hooper, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it had been difficult for Sanghera to speak out earlier, but she had done so because “other cases have been drawn to her attention and she feels now women will get a fair hearing”.

“It is very difficult to take on powerful people like Lord Lester and it was very unclear at that time whether or not the code of conduct extended to sexual harassment,” Hooper said.

Lester had initially contacted Sanghera about a private member’s bill to make forced marriage a civil offence.

If the Lords upholds the recommended punishment, it would be the longest suspension handed to either a peer or an MP since the second world war.

The report found the harassment began after Sanghera, who was not named in the report, attended a meeting at the Lords and missed her evening train. Lester suggested she stay at his London home, and said his wife would be there. the report said.

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.

Sanghera said that after he made more suggestive remarks, she slept with her bedroom door jammed shut with a chair, and called a friend about her concerns. The next morning, when his wife had left, Sanghera said Lester put his arms around her waist and chased her around the kitchen.

Sanghera, a bestselling author, said he later offered to make her a peer within a year in return for sex.

“He even spelled it [baroness] 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,” she said.

The report said Sanghera provided six witnesses, including 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 witnesses, including his wife, who said they had never seen Lester acting inappropriately.

“I speak about forced marriage in front of thousands of people. I talk about breaking the silence, but I hadn’t spoken about what he did to me,” Sanghera told the Times. “I’m supposed to be this empowered woman, but I began to feel like a phoney.”

Sanghera, who was disowned by her Sikh parents in her teens for refusing an arranged marriage, said she wanted to convince others to speak out.

She told the Times she burst into tears when the report found Lester had acted inappropriately. “The sense of relief was overwhelming. I wanted him to know that what he did wasn’t acceptable and honourable.”

Friends of the peer have argued the procedure was unfair. The crossbench peer Lord Pannick, a close friend of Lester, said the Lords commissioner refused to allow Lester to cross-examine Sanghera.

“Such a process would not be acceptable in any other regulatory, disciplinary or employment context,” he told the Times. “Parliament has applied a procedure that would be invalidated by the courts if Lord Lester were to be suspended by his local darts club.”