Brave victim tells sex abuse survivors “This is your victory” after paedophile peer Nazir Ahmed is jailed
A WOMAN who was sexually assaulted by paedophile peer Nazir Ahmed (pictured) as a young girl told all abuse survivors his jailing was “your victory, too” — concluding: “In the end, all tyrants fall."
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was twice sexually assaulted as a little girl by the future peer and was in court on Friday to see him finally held accountable for the crimes 50 years on.
She said in a statement after he was jailed for attempted rape against her and buggery against a young boy: “To all other survivors of sexual abuse, this is your victory, too.
“Although you may not have been present in court with me, please know you were ever present in my mind and in my heart it is because of you I found the courage to continue whenever I fell to my knees.
“I am just so very sorry I could not find the courage to step out of the darkness and remove the cloak of silence sooner.”
In a moving victim impact statement she read from the witness box, the woman told how the legacy of abuse carried out by Ahmed still took a toll all these years later, recalling: “It was my childhood dreams that got me through my childhood, and one of them was to one day go to Australia to see the Great Barrier Reef.
“I went a few years ago and realised I could not go diving as I am unable to get my head under the water because I’m taken back to the suffocating feeling of being dragged down under the covers by him Ahmed, kept there and not being able to escape from being sexually abused.
“As I sat on the pontoon overlooking the Great Barrier Reef, whilst my partner went diving, I thought: ‘What he did to me is still impacting on me’.
“It is lifelong, and I have learned to live with it, in part by avoiding certain things, which in this case, was not being able to fulfil a childhood dream.”
The woman said she had carried an “overwhelming feeling of shame” with her throughout her childhood, adding: “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 on to him, the paedophile, whom I know feels no personal shame.
“However, he has been publicly shamed in terms of what he did to me.
“In the end, all tyrants fall.”
The woman — just feet away from Ahmed as he sat in the dock in pinstriped suit and spotted tie — said the abuse had affected her relationships as an adult.
She added: “Whenever I’m alone, with a man I’ve just met or got to know, in a personal or professional capacity, the following thought always crosses my mind — is he going to cause me sexual harm, and where is the nearest exit route for escape if he tries to?
“For every child I have ever had the privilege to know, I have asked myself whether they will make it through their childhood without being sexually abused.
“It is then that my heart fills with sadness and the unbearable ache of knowing I may never know.
“I may never be able to protect them from significant harm.”
The woman thanked police and the jury for their part in confirming Ahmed’s guilt, adding: “I can’t change the past. I can with courage change the future.
“By changing the future, I can help prevent others from suffering through the same painful history I live through.
“As I now begin to make this case a part of my past, knowing through my action, he is not able to rape children for a while, my journey through the criminal justice system has been worth every single step.”