MP accused of sexual assault to go on trial in March
AN MP accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008 will go on trial in March next year, media reports said.
Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan, who represents Wakefield in West Yorkshire, faces a single count of sexual assault against the teenager in Staffordshire.
The 48-year-old appeared at the Old Bailey in London last Thursday (16) via video link and the case was transferred to Southwark Crown Court.
A two-week trial has been scheduled to start on March 21. The MP denied the single charge of sexual assault when he appeared at the Old Bailey in September.
The defendant, who is on unconditional bail, has been suspended by the Conservative Party and sits in the Commons as an independent, the BBC reported. Wakefield in West Yorkshire was part of Labour’s ‘red wall’ for 87 years before Tory Imran Ahmad Khan won the seat in the 2019 General Election.
Labour MP Mary Creagh held the seat previously – but was beaten by Ahmad Khan by 3,358 votes.
“It is true that an accusation has been made against me. May I make it clear from the outset that the allegation, which is from over 13 years ago, is denied in the strongest terms. This matter is deeply distressing to me and I, of course, take it extremely seriously,” said a statement Khan posted on Twitter earlier this year.
“To be accused of doing something I did not do is shocking, destabilising and traumatic. I am innocent. Those, like me, who are falsely accused of such actions are in the difficult position of having to endure damaging and painful speculation until the case is concluded. I ask for privacy as I work to clear my name.”
He remains on unconditional bail ahead of his trial, reported The Daily Mail.
Khan was born in Wakefield, where he attended the independent Silcoates School before going to university at the Pushkin Institute in Russia and graduating from King’s College in London with a bachelor’s degree in war studies.
Before entering parliament, he worked for the UN as a special assistant for political affairs in Mogadishu.
The Crown Prosecution Service previously said it made the decision to charge Khan after reviewing a file of evidence from Staffordshire Police.