The people he spoke to did not take him “too seriously”, a jury heard at the trial of Imran Ahmad Khan on Thursday. Khan, 48, was elected to Wakefield MP in West Yorkshire in 2019. He denies a single charge of sexually assaulting the boy. He allegedly forced the 15-year-old to drink gin and tonic, dragged him upstairs and asked him to watch pornographic material before touching him on a bunk after a party in January 2008. The Southwark Crown Court heard that a report was made to the police, but the boy did not want to make a formal complaint at the time. But everything “flooded” when he found out that Khan was a candidate in the 2019 elections. Days after Khan’s victory in the “red wall” seat, the young man went to the police. The alleged victim said he voted Labor but said his complaint had no political motives. “If it was, I would do it before the general election,” he said. “I am also contacting the Tories press office, trying to let them know what happened. “They did not take me very seriously.” He continued: “I explained that Imran Khan was a candidate for parliament… and I said: ‘I was sexually assaulted when I was a child, when I was 15 years old.’ The woman he spoke to listened to the court, sounded “shocked” and handed it to someone else who sounded more “strict” and asked if he had any “proof”. I said, ‘Yes, there is 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 parents of the alleged victim burst into tears as they said how their son was left “inconsolable” and “moved” after the incident in a house in Staffordshire. The mother said Khan looked like a “very charming man” who thought he was a “foreign king”, while describing her son as an “absolutely happy boy” who had tried to raise an “Enid Blyton being”. He said: “He was a small child, he was a boy. He was not a man and I think that is what has upset me the most in all this. He was a child when he went upstairs that night and suddenly he had to face what he had to face. “ He wept as he added: “I will never forget, as long as I live: [My son] just rocking and rocking and rocking. I could not make sense of him. I just grabbed him and tried to calm him down and stop shaking. “ The MP claims that he touched the teenager’s elbow only when he was “extremely upset” after a discussion about his confused sexuality. Khan’s lawyer, Gudrun Young QC, suggested in a cross-examination that the complainant had given three “contradictory” reports – a police report in 2008 and police interviews in 2019 and 2021. He suggested that the man, who has been trained as an actor, “literally makes it” and relives a “drama that you are convinced of in your mind”. But the alleged victim insisted he was telling the truth, telling the court: “I am not a liar.” The trial continues.
