On Monday 10th August, an 84-year-old House of Lords peer who had previously been instrumental in enacting race and sex discrimination laws in the UK passed away due to a heart disease.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill had resigned from the House of Lords in 2018 after Jasvinder Sanghera, a campaigner against forced marriages and abuse, accused the peer of sexual harassment.
The lawyer was initially affiliated with the Labour Party, then the SDP, before becoming a Liberal Democrat peer in 1993. Following Sanghera’s accusations, the Lords confirmed an earlier finding that the peer had breached the House’s code of conduct by sexually harassing a lobbyist 12 years earlier.
It had been alleged that he had offered Ms Sanghera a place in the Lords if she consented to sleeping with him. Lord Lester had repeatedly and consistently denied any and all wrongdoings. Yet, he offered his resignation before a complete investigation stating that he did not have “the strength or health to continue”.
Yesterday his family confirmed that he had died from heart disease at his home in London. Before the scandal ended his public career, he was one of the best known and influential human rights lawyers in the country. He spent 30 years lobbying successive governments to legislate to make the European Convention on Human Rights enforceable in British courts. He introduced two private member’s bills that were seen as eventually being the blueprints for the Human Rights Act 1998.
Anthony Lester, who was called to the Bar in 1963 and became a Queen’s Counsel 12 years later, was a key contributor to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Race Relations Act 1976. He also campaigned for the Civil Partnership Act 2004.
