'Drunk' Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan forced 15-year-old boy to drink gin and tonic before groping him, jury told

The alleged victim said he called the Conservative press office to warn the party what Imran Ahmad Khan, 48, had done, days before he became the MP for Wakefield in the December 2019 general election.

Khan, who is gay and a Muslim, denies sexual assault, claiming the then teenager “became extremely upset” after a conversation about the Catholic schoolboy’s confused sexuality.

The complainant told Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday that he was left feeling “scared, vulnerable, numb, shocked and surprised” when he was attacked following a party in January 2008 and has since considered taking his own life.

He said he went to police after Khan helped Prime Minister Boris Johnson win a large Commons majority by taking the Wakefield constituency in the so-called “red wall” that had formed Labour’s heartlands in the Midlands and northern England.

“I don’t think it’s right that a person is in a public office who has done this,” said the alleged victim.

“He has access to children. During the pandemic he was sending videos to primary schools, which appalled me and terrifies me.

“I contacted the police and told them he still has access to children and it’s a safeguarding issue.”

Khan, then 34, allegedly sexually assaulted the boy at a house in Staffordshire following a dinner of beef Wellington and a party, where the MP was drinking gin and tonics.

The complainant, now 29, said he “vividly” remembers the blue Bombay Sapphire bottle Khan took to the party, the smell of the spirit in the cut glass tumbler, and the fizz of the bubbles as he was given the cocktail.

“It was being forced on me and going up my nose a little bit,” he said in one of three police video interviews played at Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday.

“When it was in my mouth, he kept pushing it back and I could feel it in the edges of my mouth, the glass being in my mouth and being forced.

“I kept saying, ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like it’, and he kept forcing us to drink and I kept feeling a bit weird – something’s not right here, he’s making us drink.”

He said Khan, who he believed was “some sort of prince”, threw away a ginger tabby cat the complainant was clutching for comfort and dragged him upstairs.

Khan is also said to have watched the boy do pull ups, asked him to watch pornography and told him he was “good looking” in a “love whisper” in his ear, described by the complainant as “disgusting and really slimy”.

The alleged victim said he pretended to be asleep before Khan touched his feet.

“He was drunk because I could hear his heavy breathing,” he said.

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The complainant said the “slow caressing” continued, despite him telling the MP to “stop”.

He described Khan as “quite a small fellow”, who was “quite stout” with “quite bulgy eyes” and “pouty with his lips” and spoke with a deep “posh” voice.

Describing the alleged assault, the complainant said: “It was like pouncing, there was no more subtlety. I was scared, vulnerable, numb, shocked, surprised.

“I didn’t think it was real for a lot of it and it felt like it was going very, very quickly and very, very slowly at the same time.

“When he got to my groin and was about to touch my testicles, it was sheer panic.”

The complainant said he “froze”, adding: “I freaked out... and ran as fast as I could.”

The court has heard that he was “distraught” when he reached his parents, and police were called to the house, but the boy did not want to take it any further at the time.

However, the victim said he felt “an explosion of emotion” when he found out Khan was standing to be an MP.

The Labour supporter denied the allegation was politically motivated, adding: “I want this person to be convicted of the wrong that he has done, so that it can’t happen to anyone else.”

The MP’s barrister, Gudrun Young QC, suggested in cross examination that the complainant has given three “contradictory” accounts, “almost like you are describing three different sets of events”.

He replied: “I would disagree with you.”

Ms Young suggested Khan had asked the boy what pornography he watched to find out where his “true sexual proclivities lay”, after the youngster told him he was confused about his sexuality.

“You got into a conversation with an older man in which you were out of your depth, uncomfortable, and when he mentioned which pornography you watch, you became extremely upset and jumped up and ran out of the room,” she said.

The complainant said: “No, that’s not what happened at all.”

The trial continues.

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