Forthcoming Wakefield by-election after Imran Amhad Kan found guilty

[PR1Berske]

 

[cupid_stunt]

More details here:

Conservative MP for Wakefield Imran Ahmad Khan, 47, is facing trial accused ofsexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008, it can be revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan said: “It is true that an accusation has been made against me.

“May I make it clear from the outset that the allegation, which is from over 13 years ago, is denied in the strongest terms.

Tory MP faces trial for alleged sexual assault on teenage boy

‘I am innocent,’ says MP over 2008 assault accusation

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Riklet]

Lib Dems winning here.

 

[PR1Berske]

Khan has had the whip suspended.

 

[brogdale]

Would make an interesting by-election.

 

[MickiQ]

One of the so called 'Red Wall' seats, Labour had previously held it from 1932

 

[Dogsauce]

Would make an interesting by-election.

The flagshagging. Just imagine it.

 

[brogdale]

The flagshagging. Just imagine it.

It's not just about Labour, you know!

 

[PR1Berske]

Wakefield, 1992-present

 

[savoloysam]

This will end well then.

 

[Pickman's model]

Would make an interesting by-election.

Will make an interesting by-election

 

[PR1Berske]

From LabourList

Potential Labour Party candidates are preparing to stand in the parliamentary constituency of Wakefield, ahead of a by-election that many suspect will soon take place but has not yet been confirmed.

Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan, who took the seat from Labour as a Tory candidate in 2019, is set to go on trial after being accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008, which he has denied “in the strongest terms”.

The MP is suspended by the Conservative Party pending the outcome of the case and currently sits as an Independent. He pled not guilty when he appeared in court in September and his trial is expected to start on March 28th.

If any MP receives a custodial sentence of less than a year, a recall petition is triggered requiring 10% of local voters to sign to force a by-election, but one of 12 months or more triggers an automatic by-election.
LabourList understands that Jack Hemingway, deputy leader of Wakefield Council, is considered the frontrunner among the possible candidates that the Labour Party could pick to contest the seat if a by-election is held.

He announced his intention to run on Facebook last week, saying he has a “proven record of beating the Tories”, but the deputy council leader also added that “right now, we all need to concentrate on the local elections”.

Other potential Labour candidates for Wakefield include Sam Howarth, who works for Labour MP and outgoing South Yorkshire mayor Dan Jarvis, and used to work for ex-MP and Keir Starmer ally Jenny Chapman.

Law student Jakob Williamson is also tipped to be interested in standing, while Wakefield West councillor and teacher Michael Graham – who is on Labour’s future candidates programme – is known to be keen.

Simon Lightwood, an NHS worker who is a member of Labour’s national policy forum and Yorkshire Labour’s regional board, is rumoured to be in the running. The name of Community union’s Kate Dearden has also been in the mix, but LabourList can confirm that she is not standing.
“This time is has to be someone properly local,” a local source told LabourList. “People there actually have the ability to be proud of ‘one of their own’ in politics, if it’s someone who speaks their mind and stands up for them.”

Mary Creagh was the Labour MP for Wakefield from 2005 until 2019, when Imran Ahmad Khan stood as a Conservative candidate and overturned her 2,176 majority to secure a majority of 3,358 votes.
There is no talk of Creagh being interested in a Wakefield by-election, but she is reportedly seeking to challenge Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North. She was an Islington councillor and the Labour group leader there at one time.

 

[PR1Berske]

A man who alleges he was sexually assaulted by a Tory MP when he was 15 has told a court that he contacted the Conservative press office to tell them what happened.

The people he spoke to did not take him “very seriously”, a jury at the trial of Imran Ahmad Khan heard on Thursday.

Khan, 48, was elected MP for Wakefield in West Yorkshire in 2019. He denies a single count of sexual assault against the boy.

He allegedly forced the 15-year-old to drink gin and tonic, dragged him upstairs and asked him to watch pornography before groping him in a bunk bed after a party in January 2008.


Southwark crown court heard that a police report was made but the boy did not want to make a formal complaint at the time. But it all came “flooding back” when he discovered Khan was standing as a candidate in the 2019 election.

Days after Khan’s victory in the “red wall” seat, the young man went to the police.

The alleged victim said he voted Labour but said his complaint was not politically motivated. “If it was, I would’ve done it before the general election,” he said.

“I also contacted the Tory press office, trying to inform them what had happened. I wasn’t taken very seriously.” This contact took place days before the poll.

He continued: “I explained that Imran Khan was running for MP … and said: ‘He sexually assaulted me when I was a child, when I was 15.’”

The woman he spoke to, the court heard, sounded shocked and allegedly passed him on to someone else who sounded more stern and asked if he had any proof.


“I said: ‘Yes, there’s a police report,’ and she said: ‘Well …’ and that was it. I said: ‘I’m going to the police,’ and she said: ‘Well, you do that.’”

The alleged victim’s parents told how their son was left inconsolable and shaking after the incident at a house in Staffordshire.

The mother said Khan had seemed like a “very charming man” whom she believed was “foreign royalty”, while she described her son as an “absolutely joyous boy” whom she had tried to bring up in an “Enid Blyton existence"

 

[PR1Berske]

 

[PR1Berske]

Sentencing will happen at "a date to be announced". I can't see any confirmation or not that he intends to appeal.

Under the Recall of MPs Act, a recall petition can be started in the Wakefield constituency in the following circumstances.



"A custodial prison sentence (including a suspended sentence)
(Note that MPs imprisoned with sentences greater than one year are automatically removed due to the Representation of the People Act 1981)
Suspension from the House of at least 10 sitting days or 14 calendar days, following a report by the Committee on Standards;
A conviction for providing false or misleading expenses claims."

 

[Cerv]

Imran Ahmad Khan: Tory MP in sexual assault case had oddball reputation

Complainant says they tried to warn Conservative party before Ahmad Khan won election in Wakefield

www.theguardian.com

the conservatives were warned at the time of the run up to the 2019 election, but pressed on with his selection (as a late replacement for another candidate). gross.

 

[Riklet]

Gross. What a nonce!

 

[PR1Berske]

Well you're going to love this:

Crispin Blunt
Member of Parliament for Reigate
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Statement on the Conviction of Imran Ahmad Khan MP


Monday, 11 April, 2022
I am utterly appalled and distraught at the dreadful miscarriage of justice that has befallen my friend and colleague Imran Ahmad Khan, MP for Wakefield since December 2019. His conviction today is nothing short of an international scandal, with dreadful wider implications for millions of LGBT+ muslims around the world.

I sat through some of the trial. The conduct of this case relied on lazy tropes about LGBT+ people that we might have thought we had put behind us decades ago.

As a former Justice Minister I was prepared to testify about the truly extraordinary sequence of events that has resulted in Imran being put through this nightmare start to his Parliamentary career.

I hope for the return of Imran Ahmad Khan to the public service that has exemplified his life to date. Any other outcome will be a stain on our reputation for justice, and an appalling own goal by Britain as we try to take a lead in reversing the Victorian era prejudice that still disfigures too much of the global statute book.

Articles

 

[PR1Berske]

has not gone down very well...

Crispin Blunt Told “Not Fit to Hold Public Office” By Councillor in Constituency Conservative Association

Just when the Tories hoped their expulsion of Imran Ahmad Khan from the party following his guilty sentencing this afternoon would end this latest chapter

order-order.com

 

[platinumsage]

Apparently Blunt was in court and sat through the defense arguments, but was absent for the prosecution bits so missed all the shocking witness testimonies and damning evidence.

 

[PR1Berske]

 

[Wilf]

Quite an impressive list of nonces and sex offenders from the last few intakes of Tory MPs (criminal convictions + internal investigations). Aside from any Me Too effect, giving victims a bit more confidence, there's still likely to be an element of under reporting as well (given the nature of power and privilege). Not just the Tories of course. Fucking scum.

 

[MickiQ]

This is one of the so called Redwall seats, If Labour can't win it back in the middle of a massive cost of living crisis after the sitting Tory MP has been convicted of being a nonce then it really is time they pack up and go home.

 

[Wilf]

This is one of the so called Redwall seats, If Labour can't win it back in the middle of a massive cost of living crisis after the sitting Tory MP has been convicted of being a nonce then it really is time they pack up and go home.

Suspect they'll walk it, providing they don't fuck up the candidate selection (every chance they will of course). Also, keep starmer away.

Edit: walk it in the context of the current Labour Party = win by 3-4 thousand, not the landslide it should be.

 

[RedRedRose]

Crispin Blunt in the under-secretary for Prisons and Youth Justice, seriously, WTF!

 

[Elpenor]

On the other hand he’s secured the nonce vote for the next election.

 

[RedRedRose]

It gets worse. In the Novara news round-up (from 29mins onward), it states:

• Khan previously assaulted someone back in 2010, but wasn't prosecuted,
• Khan tried to prevent media coverage of the case on the account that he, as a muslim, shouldn't be drinking and engaging in homosexual acts
• The later request was supported by members of MI6 and the Foreign Office

The Tories, across the board, seem to have the same indifference to the law and same sense of self-entitlement

 

[platinumsage]

• Khan tried to prevent media coverage of the case on the account that he, as a muslim, shouldn't be drinking and engaging in homosexual acts
• The later request was supported by members of MI6 and the Foreign Office

^^ I thought this was an extraordinary claim so I listened to the video. What he actually says "a former head of MI6 and foreign office officials"

However he's wrong too, I read the Times article and what it actually says is "a former director of global counter-terrorism at MI6" and "a former Foreign Office official".

I don't know why people have to make stuff up, it's hardly necessary.

 

[RedRedRose]

^^ I thought this was an extraordinary claim so I listened to the video. What he actually says "a former head of MI6 and foreign office officials"

However he's wrong too, I read the Times article and what it actually says is "a former director of global counter-terrorism at MI6" and "a former Foreign Office official".

I don't know why people have to make stuff up, it's hardly necessary.

I think Novara just got it wrong, and not deliberately.

 

[PR1Berske]

A by-election is coming.



"Imran Ahmad Khan has resigned as an MP after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.

Boris Johnson now faces a potentially challenging by-election in Wakefield.

Khan, who represented the West Yorkshire seat, was thrown out of the Conservative Party after he was convicted on Monday.

He said stepping down would allow him to "focus entirely on clearing my name"."