MP is guilty of sex attack on teenage boy
A WEST Yorkshire Tory MP has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a boy after forcing him to drink gin at a party 14 years ago.
The victim, aged 15 at the time of the assault, said he wasn’t “taken very seriously” when he made the allegation to the Conservative Party press office days before Imran Ahmad Khan, 48, was elected as MP for Wakefield in 2019.
He made a complaint to police days after Khan’s election victory.
Southwark Crown Court heard how Khan forced the teenager to drink gin and tonic, dragged him upstairs, pushed him onto a bed and asked him to watch pornography before the attack at a house in Staffordshire in 2008.
The victim, now 29, told a jury he was left feeling “scared, vulnerable, numb, shocked and surprised” after Khan touched his feet and legs as he went to sleep in a top bunkbed.
He ran to his parents and a police report was made at the time, but no further action was taken because the youngster did not want to make a formal complaint.
But he told jurors “it all came flooding back” when he learned Khan was standing in the December 2019 general election.
Khan, who was sent a questionnaire by Staffordshire Police rather than being interviewed under caution at a station because of “Covid protocols in place at the time”, denied sexual assault.
The MP, who is gay, claims he only touched the teenager’s elbow when he “became extremely upset” after a conversation about his ‘confused’ sexuality. Khan, then 34, said he was trying to be “kind” and “helpful”.
But Khan, who has been suspended by the Conservative Party, was found guilty by a jury at Southwark Crown Court yesterday.
The judge, Mr Justice Baker, said he will sentence Khan at a later date.
He will be thrown out of the House of Commons if he is jailed for more than a year, or otherwise could be subject to a petition to oust him in the recall process.