MP Crispin Blunt confronted by sex abuse victim over support of Imran Khan

By ITV News political reporter Harry Horton.

Conservative MP Crispin Blunt was confronted outside a courtroom by a sex abuse victim over his support for their attacker, the former Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan.

The incident happened following a court of appeal challenge by Mr Khan over the guilty verdict and sentence he received earlier this year for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008.

During the trial, the victim said he was not "taken very seriously" when he made the allegation to the Conservative Party press office days before the 2019 general election, and went to police after Imran Ahmad Khan won his Wakefield seat.

The Conservative Party insists it has no record of any complaint about Imran Ahmad Khan being made.

Khan, who is gay and a Muslim, claimed he only touched the teenager's elbow when he "became extremely upset" after a conversation about his confused sexuality.

Khan was expelled from the Conservative Party and resigned following his conviction in April, triggering a by-election in the constituency.

On Monday, Khan’s appeal was rejected and he remains in prison. Reporting restrictions meant the nature of the appeal proceedings could not be reported until now.

Mr Blunt - who has said he won’t stand at the next election - continues to support the disgraced former MP.

Immediately after Khan was convicted, Blunt released a statement saying he was "appalled and distraught" by the verdict, and said it was "an international scandal, with dreadful wider implications for millions of LGBT+ Muslims around the world."

He claimed the prosecution "relied on lazy tropes about LGBT+ people that we might have thought we had put behind us decades ago."

As Khan’s hearing at the court of appeal got underway last month, a man leant over to Mr Blunt to say: "I’d love to talk to you later if you’d be ok with that."

"Yes. Who are you?" replied Mr Blunt, who was there to support his friend as he appealed his conviction.

As proceedings got underway, the Reigate MP realised he was speaking to the man Mr Khan had sexually assaulted when he was 15-years-old.

At times during the two-and-a-half-hour hearing, Mr Blunt appeared to drift off and fall asleep.

After the hearing had concluded, the victim confronted Mr Blunt outside the courtroom. He raised concerns about the way the Conservative Party dealt with his initial complaint before the 2019 election, and attempts to talk to the party about its complaints process following the trial.

The victim also challenged Mr Blunt on his continued support for Khan. After several minutes of discussion, Mr Blunt walked away and left the court.

Khan appeared via video link from prison. He sat alone in an interview room in his grey prison uniform, with a prison guard stood outside the door.

His lawyers argued that his conviction was "unsafe" because the case against him was "weak" and was bolstered by "bad character evidence" in the form of a man who alleged he had been sexually assaulted as an adult by Khan in Pakistan in 2010.

They also argued his jail term was too long for the offence and should have been suspended.

But both appeals were dismissed by three senior judges in a ruling on Monday.

Dismissing the conviction appeal, Mr Justice Sweeney, sitting with Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Linden, said: "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."

He added: "Against that overall background, we have no doubt that the appellant's trial was fair and that his conviction was safe."

Khan’s lawyer, Gudrun Young KC, said that since his election to parliament Khan’s life has been in "freefall", adding: "At every stage of this process, the investigation, charge, trial, everything he has worked for and achieved in his life has been gradually stripped away from him, ending in this conviction."

She said Khan had gone from "high public office" with a successful career behind him to being "utterly and completely disgraced with his life and career in ruins, shamed and humiliated at every turn".

"To say his reputation is in tatters does not do the matter justice. It has been completely destroyed," she said.

"Mr Khan's fall from grace has been spectacular.

"He will always be known as a disgraced former MP and he will take that to his grave."

Crispin Blunt MP did not respond to requests for comment.

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