The conviction by jury of MP Imran Ahmad Khan for sexually assaulting a teenage boy is “nothing short of an international scandal”, according to a former justice minister.
Conservative MP Crispin Blunt said Khan, who was expelled from the Tory Party after Monday’s verdict, was the victim of a “dreadful miscarriage of justice”.
A jury at Southwark Crown Court took about five hours to decide the Wakefield MP was guilty of sexually assaulting a boy, who was 15 at the time of the offence.
The court heard how Khan, a gay Muslim who is now aged 48, forced the then-teenager to drink gin and tonic, dragged him upstairs, pushed him on to a bed and asked him to watch pornography before the attack at a house in Staffordshire in January 2008.
Crispin Blunt
PA
But Mr Blunt, who was at the London court to hear the verdict on Monday, said the case “relied on lazy tropes about LGBT+ people” and argued the result had “dreadful wider implications” for LGBT Muslims “around the world”.
Anneliese Dodds, Labour Party chairwoman and shadow equalities secretary, labelled Mr Blunt’s comments “disgraceful”.
She called on the Prime Minister and Tory chairman Oliver Dowden to “take action” against the Reigate MP and “distance their party from his comments”.
In a statement published on his website, Mr Blunt, who came out as gay in 2010, said: “I am utterly appalled and distraught at the dreadful miscarriage of justice that has befallen my friend and colleague Imran Ahmad Khan, MP for Wakefield since December 2019.
Imran Ahmad Khan
Dominic Lipinski
“His conviction today is nothing short of an international scandal, with dreadful wider implications for millions of LGBT+ Muslims around the world.
“I sat through some of the trial. The conduct of this case relied on lazy tropes about LGBT+ people that we might have thought we had put behind us decades ago.
“As a former justice minister, I was prepared to testify about the truly extraordinary sequence of events that has resulted in Imran being put through this nightmare start to his parliamentary career.”
Mr Blunt concluded saying he hoped “for the return” of Khan to public service, stating that “any other outcome will be a stain on our reputation for justice”.
A Tory spokesman, when asked whether the party agreed with Mr Blunt’s view, reiterated that Khan had been expelled from Boris Johnson’s party.
“Our view is pretty clear,” he added.
