Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan, who was found guilty earlier this month of sexually assaulting a teenage boy, has been revealed to have been appointed to a panel on child predator grooming gangs by the Conservative party.
The Conservative MP, who was elected to parliament in 2019 to represent Wakefield, was appointed by Priti Patel’s Home Office in 2020 to serve on an advisory panel with the purpose of producing a policy paper on grooming gangs entitled “Group-based child sexual exploitation characteristics of offending,” The Guardian reported this week.
The paper noted that Imran Ahmad Khan attended meetings of the panel in July, September, and November of 2020, despite already having been questioned by police in regards to allegations that he molested a teenage boy in 2008.
The Guardian went on to state that the Conservative party was made aware of the allegations just days after Khan was elected in 2019, as his victim broke his silence following him being elected to parliament and told the party of the abuse he suffered at the hands of Imran Kahn.
A survivor of the infamous Rotherham child rape gangs, Sammy Wodehouse, said on Wednesday that she was disgusted by having to work with a panel that included a man accused of sexually assaulting a boy.
“This was important work that I undertook in good faith, but I am disgusted to have been put in a position where I was working with a man later convicted for child sexual assault,” Wodehouse said.
“Knowing now that the Conservatives had already received complaints from a victim about this man, it is gut-wrenching for me as a survivor that they could possibly have allowed him to be considered for this role,” she added.
Responding to the revelation, a spokesman denied that Home Secretary Priti Patel or the Home Office were informed of the sexual assault allegations against Khan before they were made publicly available in 2021.
“In his role as an MP, Mr Khan was asked along with several others to peer review a Home Office research paper. The Home Office was not aware of the allegations against him at the time and he no longer has any involvement with the department,” the Home Office spokesman said.
Khan was suspended from the Conservative party and subsequently announced he was relinquishing his House of Commons seat after being found guilty earlier this month. Despite having said he would resign his seat almost two weeks ago, the process to trigger this was only completed this week, meaning he remains a paid member of parliament until Saturday, drawing his full month’s pay.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was questioned in the House of Commons if he would apologise for his party’s failure to heed warnings about Mr Khan before appointing him to the grooming gang panel.
“I believe the Home Office has already made a statement about it,” Mr Johnson replied.
All levels of government have been accused of malfeasance or incompetence when confronted with evidence of the mostly Pakistani Muslim grooming gang epidemic that has ravaged communities in England, with reports accusing police of ignoring young white girls being abused by “Asian” men for fear of being labelled as racist.
It is estimated that there were at least 1,400 underage girl victims in the city of Rotherham, alone.
Maggie Oliver, a former police detective turned rape gang whistleblower, has claimed that “institutional cowardice” was to blame for the horrible crimes to be committed in the first place and indeed for many grooming gang members to walk freely on the streets of Britain to this day.
Oliver has gone on to say that victims of the rape gangs “were let down by the state when the grooming first occurred, and they are still being let down by officialdom’s refusal to uphold the law, keep them informed or respect their human rights.”
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