A Jewish peer who was found to have offered a woman a peerage in return for sex has had his suspension from the House of Lords blocked.
Lord Lester, 82, who sat in the Lords as a Liberal Democrat peer, had been handed the longest ban in modern Parliamentary history, following a report by the Privileges and Conduct Committee.
According to a committee report, published last week, he told a woman 12 years ago: “If you sleep with me, I will make you a baroness within a year”.
But on Thursday the Lords voted by 101 to 78 to block his suspension.
Lord Pannick, a QC and long-time friend of Lord Lester, had led protests, saying he had been given no opportunity to challenge the complainant on her claims.
Lord Pannick told the BBC earlier this week: “The basic element of fairness is that you have the opportunity to test the evidence put against you. You can ask questions to establish if it's a misrecollection, malign motive.”
Jasvinder Sanghera, the founder of the charity Karma Nirvana, later waived her anonymity, identifying herself as the complainant, to urge other potential victims of sexual harassment in Parliament to come forward.
Lord Lester, a human rights barrister and former government adviser, disputed the findings, having denied Ms Sanghera’s claims.
On Monday he tweeted that Parliamentary investigation was “flawed and unfair”, arguing that there had not been a “fair process” for investigating sexual harassment claims in Parliament.
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