Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan quits after sexual assault conviction
- Published
Imran Ahmad Khan was found guilty earlier this week but says he will appeal against the conviction
A Conservative MP found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy has announced he is resigning from the Commons.
Imran Ahmad Khan, who has represented Wakefield since 2019, said he was appealing against the conviction.
But he added it was "intolerable" for his constituents not to be represented properly while he goes to the courts.
The decision will trigger a by-election for his seat, which had previously been held by Labour for 87 years.
Khan had a majority of 3,358 votes in 2019 in the West Yorkshire seat, which is seen as being part of the Conservatives' Red Wall of former Labour strongholds in the North of England.
Earlier this week, Southwark Crown Court found Khan guilty of groping the teenager at a party in Staffordshire in January 2008.
The jury heard he had forced the youngster to drink gin, dragged him upstairs and asked him to watch pornography before assaulting him.
'Long delays'
The verdict saw the Conservative Party expel him "with immediate effect".
Khan, who is 48 and has continued to deny the offence, is awaiting sentencing.
If he received a prison term of more than a year, he would be automatically disbarred from being an MP.
Posting on Twitter, Khan said it would not "ordinarily be appropriate to resign" while legal proceedings were continuing.
But he added: "Owing to long delays in the legal process, my constituents have already been without visible parliamentary representation for a year.
"Even in the best case scenario, anticipated legal proceedings could last many more months.
"I have therefore regrettably come to the conclusion that it is intolerable for constituents to go years without an MP who can amplify their voices in Parliament."
It will be up to the Conservative Party when the by-election for his Wakefield seat will be held.
But parliamentary rules state they have to move a writ - the legal process to trigger a by-election - within three months, and the vote has to take place between 21 and 27 days later.
A Conservative spokesperson said: "Decisions will be made in due course by the chief whip's office."
Anonymity plea
During the trial, the victim, who is now 29, said he was "not taken very seriously" when he made an allegation to the Conservative Party press office in December 2019, days before Khan was elected as Wakefield's MP.
The victim went to the police days after the election.
Conservative sources told the BBC the party had found no record of a complaint being made about Khan in the run up to polling day.
Khan tried and failed to ban media reporting of the case, with his lawyers arguing that his life could be at risk, as the consumption of alcohol and homosexuality are strictly prohibited within his faith.
But a risk assessment by West Yorkshire police counter-terrorism security advisers concluded that there was "no objective threat to [the] defendant's life that would arise from being named as the defendant in these allegations".