Imran Ahmad Khan, former a member of parliament for the UK’s ruling Conservative party, has lost an appeal against his conviction for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.
The Court of Appeal has ruled against an attempt by former Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan to overturn his conviction for child sexual assault, the BBC has reported.
Khan had been found guilty of physically sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy after giving him gin earlier this year, being handed a sentence of 18 months for the crime, which occurred in 2008.
However, according to the report by the UK’s state-owned broadcaster, Khan attempted to overturn the conviction, with the former politician’s lawyers telling the court that the conviction was “unsafe”, and that the evidence against him was ultimately “weak”.
Also highlighted during the appeal was Khan’s jail term, which his lawyer argued was ultimately unwarranted considering the politician’s status as the sole carer for his frail mother.
Both arguments were ultimately rejected by the three senior judges who heard the case, who said that the judge who initially convicted Khan was right to judge the evidence as being sufficient, and handed down what could be considered a fair sentence for the former Tory member’s crimes.
“The [trial] judge was plainly entitled to conclude that the prosecution case in relation to [the victim’s] complaint was not weak. Indeed, in our view, the case was far from weak,” the three judges rules, rebuffing arguments that Khan’s victim could not be deemed as credible enough.
The judges also agreed that the original trial Judge’s decision to jail Khan could be justified even when considering the status of his frail mother.
“In our view, on the particular facts of this case, he was entitled to reach that conclusion,” the trio remarked.
Elected to the country’s parliament in 2019, Imran Ahmad Khan — not to be confused with Imran Khan, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan — served as a representative of the constituency of Wakefield under the leadership of then-PM Boris Johnson.
As part of his parliamentary duties, Khan was appointed by the Tories to serve on an advisory panel on child rape gangs in Britain, attending meetings of the panel in the months of July, September and November 2020.
This is despite the fact that Khan had been previously questioned by police over allegations he molested a teenage boy in 2008, with the Tories reportedly becoming aware of this aspect of the MPs past shortly after he was elected.
Speaking on the fact a now-convicted pedophile sat on the panel, Sammy Wodehouse, a rape gang victim who had previously worked with the body, said she was disgusted, lashing out at the Tories for appointing the man in the first place.
“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 remarked.
“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,” the abuse victim went on to say.