The Lord Rennard sexual harassment allegations, which have mortified the Liberal Democrat Party, have now led to numerous females dialing a Scotland Yard hotline to accuse him of inappropriately touching and propositioning female party workers. An ex-Lib Dem party activist has voiced to Sky News that she offered to officially complain that the peer had made inappropriate sexual overtures to her. The claim of the former party activist, regarding Lord Rennard, is at odds with the accounts presented by the sitting Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, and by the party’s senior leadership. Those accounts say that no formal sexual harassment allegations were levelled against Lord Rennard, the ex-Lib Dem chief executive.

Lord Rennard has resolutely repudiated all sexual harassment allegations against him. The Lord Rennard sexual harassment allegations have placed the Lib Dems in a beleaguered state, with the Deputy PM having to field deeply mortifying questions from the correspondents regarding this unpalatable affair. Lord Rennard has expressed preparedness to cooperate with any properly constituted inquiry into this case and has rejected allegations of misdemeanor.

The ex-party activist in question is Alison Smith, who has remarked to Sky News that she first reported a complaint about Lord Rennard in April 2007 to Paul Burstow, the then chief whip. However, her sexual harassment complaint against Lord Rennard wasn’t treated with concern. She continued to encounter brick walls within the Lib Dem party vis-à-vis her sexual harassment complaint against Lord Rennard.

Alison Smith had expressed to Paul Burstow initially itself that she was ready to take her sexual harassment complaint all the way to the police station if the chief whip deemed that it was the correct thing to do. Alison Smith has asserted that her sexual harassment complaint against Lord Rennard was dealt with informally in 2009.

Nick Clegg, meanwhile, has admitted that his party committed very grave errors while tackling the Lord Rennard sexual harassment complaints. The female party activists were let down, as per Nick Clegg, when their sexual harassment complaints against the peer were not listened to.

Meanwhile, Lady Williams, the ex-Lib Dem leader in the House of Lords, has claimed that the Lord Rennard sexual harassment affair has been hopelessly exaggerated, referring to Chris Rennard as a very fine male.