“This disgraceful situation has sabotaged this trial and caused it to abort. I do not use this adjective lightly,” Judge Richardson says.
After the defence team in Nazir Ahmed`s child abuse trial failed to release evidence it obtructed any chance to conduct a fair hearing.
Nazir Ahmed resigned from the House of Lords after the conduct committee report suggested his expulsion last year following his breach of the code of conduct “by failing to act on his personal honour”.
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The 63-year-old faced allegations of sexually assaulting a boy and a girl when he himself was a teenager in Rotherham in South Yorkshire in the early 1970s.
However, the trial was halted after vital information was only disclosed to Mr Ahmed`s legal team after the trial had begun. Although the accusations of assaults that dated back almost 50 years were made five years ago, the trial was postponed for almost a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said: “We are appealing this decision and have explained this to the two complainants. If our appeal is successful we will seek another trial of the defendants.
“In the meantime, we will consider the judgment and ensure that lessons are learned from the issues in this case.”
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Judge Richardson expressed great concern over failures by police to delve into reasonable lines of inquiry, saying the case had been handled “as if we’re in a different era”.
He said despite the prosecution’s “massive and fundamental failure” to stick to disclosure rules, it was normal to let them “put it right and have another go”.
