Former Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham has been jailed for five years and six months for sexually abusing children.
He was found guilty in January of a serious sexual assault against a boy and the attempted rape of a young girl in the 1970s.
Sheffield Crown Court heard Lord Ahmed attempted to rape the girl twice in Rotherham, when he was aged 16 or 17 but she was much younger.
The attack on the boy, who was aged under 11 at the time, also happened during the same period.
Ahmed, 64, had denied the charges, calling them a “malicious fiction.”
The judge said the offences were “so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified.”
He said: “Your actions have had profound and lifelong effects on the girl and the boy, who have lived with what you did to them for between 46 and 53 years.
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“The statements which they have made express more eloquently than I ever could how your actions have affected and continue to affect their lives in so many different and damaging ways.”
The victim of the attempted rapes, who cannot be named due to the nature of the offences, said she had lived with “an overwhelming feeling of shame.”
She told the court: “It was a burden I was made to carry, and it silenced me for many years. It is now time for me to pass that burden to him – the paedophile who I know feels no personal shame.”
The male victim, who also cannot be named, said in a personal statement read out in court: “I buried the abuse and carried it with me on my own for years and years. I feel shame because of what these men did to me.”
Lord Ahmed resigned from the House of Lords in November 2020 after a conduct committee report concluded he had sexually and emotionally exploited a vulnerable woman who sought his help.
Ahmed was charged along with his two older brothers, Mohammed Farouq, 71, and Mohammed Tariq, 65, but both were deemed unfit to stand trial.
Both had faced charges of indecent assault against the same boy abused by Ahmed.
Though the men did not face a criminal trial, jurors concluded that they did commit the alleged acts after hearing evidence in the case.
Both men were given absolute discharges after the judge said the only other two options – a hospital order or a supervision order – would not be appropriate in this case.
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