Tory MP guilty of sex assault on boy of 15
He reached into bed to grope victim after plying him with gin
A TORY MP was yesterday found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy after forcing him to drink gin at a party.
Imran Khan, 48, reached into the boy’s bed to molest him after trying to persuade him to watch pornography in 2008, a jury was told.
The victim, now a 29-year-old actor, said he rang the Conservative Party days before the 2019 general election to warn it he had been assaulted by parliamentary candidate Khan but ‘wasn’t taken very seriously’.
Khan went on to become Wakefield’s first Conservative MP since 1931 and his victim made a complaint to police days later.
Last night he was expelled by the Conservatives – after the party whip was previously withdrawn – but he remains an independent MP. He will be allowed to keep the job unless he is sentenced to more than a year in prison, in which case he will be automatically removed.
It can now be revealed that Khan was accused of sexually assaulting a young man in Pakistan in 2010 when he was working on a Foreign Office-funded project.
The alleged victim, who was in his mid-20s, said he reported the attack to the British High Commission but did not want to go to police in Pakistan because of Khan’s powerful connections in the military and government.
He claimed Khan performed a sex act on him as he dozed after offering him a sleeping pill following an evening of drinking whisky and smoking marijuana.
The trial over the attack on the 15-year-old heard the MP had stayed the night at the farmhouse owned by the boy’s family in Staffordshire after he was invited to a birthday party. The family agreed he could sleep in a spare bed in the victim’s room.
Southwark Crown Court was told that during the night Khan reached into the teenager’s bed to grope him. The victim tearfully told jurors: ‘I kept pushing his hand away but he kept coming.’
He said he felt ‘sheer panic’, adding: ‘I didn’t know what to do. I ran to my mum and dad’s bedroom. I just told my mum “That guy was trying to touch me”.’
A report was made to police but no further action was taken because the boy did not wish to make a formal complaint. He told jurors ‘it all came flooding back’ when he learned Khan was standing in the 2019 election.
Last night Labour called for Khan to resign immediately ‘so a by-election can take place and the people of Wakefield can get the representation they deserve.’
The MP will be sentenced later.