Disgraced former Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.
The 48-year-old was expelled from the Conservative Party and later resigned from his West Yorkshire seat after he was convicted for the 2008 attack following a trial at Southwark Crown Court last month.
Sentencing on Monday, Mr Justice Baker said Khan displayed a “significant degree of brutality” in the lead up to the assault. The court heard he forced the boy to drink gin, dragged him upstairs, pushed him onto a bed and asked him to watch pornography before attacking him at a house party in Staffordshire.
The victim, now 29, told the jury he was left feeling “scared, vulnerable, numb, shocked and surprised” after Khan, then 34, touched his feet and legs, coming within “a hair’s breadth” of his genitals, in a top bunkbed after the party.
Mr Baker said: “I am satisfied that the complainant was particularly vulnerable, and not only was he 15 years of age at the date of the offence, but I accept his mother’s description that he was not very worldly and very young for his age.”
Addressing Khan, he said: “Although it may well be, over the years, you had let yourself believe you had got away with having committed this offence, I am sure you were aware from the outset there was a risk there would be a day of reckoning.”
He said the former politician showed no remorse, adding: “The only regret you feel is towards yourself for having found yourself in the predicament you face as a result of your actions some 14 years ago.’’
Khan showed no emotion as he was taken down to the cells, carrying, among his possessions, a bag from an upmarket men’s shop.
He has said he will appeal against his conviction, and Gudrun Young QC, defending, said on Monday: “Mr Khan denies this offence and maintains today he is not guilty of it.”
His victim, who cannot be identified, said he has had “suicidal thoughts” and trouble with his relationships and work. “Because of this assault, throughout my teenage years I found being touched in any way difficult,” he said.
“My mental health has deteriorated rapidly since deciding to come forward and having to constantly relive an event I tried to bury for such a long time,” he continued.
“I have struggled with the guilt of dragging my family back into a horrible ordeal they would rather forget, and watch them struggle with their own guilt for allowing that man into the house.”
The court heard the victim was “inconsolable” when he spoke to his parents following the attack.
A police report was filed in January 2008 but no further action was taken because the boy did not want to make a formal complaint.
However, he filed an official complaint after Khan was elected MP for Wakefield in the December 2019 general election.
The victim claims he was not “taken very seriously” when he raised the incident with the Conservative Party’s press office days before Khan’s win.
Khan denied sexual assault, claiming he only touched the Catholic teenager’s elbow when he “became extremely upset” after a conversation about his sexuality.
He rejected any suggestion their interaction was of a sexual nature, instead saying he had been engaged in a “philosophical” discussion about sexuality with the teen over the course of the evening.
In a separate claim, Khan is alleged to sexually assaulted a man as he slept at a guesthouse in Pakistan where the disgraced MP was working on a Foreign Office-funded project. The prosecution said it was a “mere technicality” that he was not charged with a second assault.
One of Khan’s former Conservative colleagues, MP Crispin Blunt, has defended him – claiming on two occasions he did not get a “fair trial”.
Making the claim for the second time on Sunday, the former justice minister said it remained his judgment that Khan had faced “a serious miscarriage of justice”.
The Conservative Party condemned the views of Mr Blunt as “wholly unacceptable”.
A by-election in Khan’s former seat of Wakefield will be held on 23 June.
