Crispin Blunt has had quite the 24 hours. The Tory MP yesterday made an extraordinary intervention in the case of Imran Ahmad Khan, the Wakefield backbencher found guilty of the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy. Blunt decided to release a highly unusual and hyberbolic statement which lambasted the conviction as a ‘dreadful miscarriage of justice’ incited by ‘lazy tropes about LGBT+ people’ based in ‘Victorian era prejudice.’ He even claimed that Khan’s guilty verdict ‘is nothing short of an international scandal, with dreadful wider implications for millions of LGBT+ muslims around the world’, writing:
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.
The court which convicted Khan found he had plied a 15-year-old with gin and tonic before dragging him upstairs to watch pornography and groping him in a bunk bed. The victim’s parents reportedly both broke down in tears when giving evidence as they told how their son was left ‘inconsolable’ and ‘shaking’ after the incident at a house in Staffordshire. As ITV reporter Harry Horton notes, Blunt only attended the defence and summing up of the trial; he was not present to see any of the prosecution witnesses.
Crispin Blunt has today removed the statement from his website and issued a grovelling apology. He now writes:
I have decided to retract my statement defending Imran Ahmad Khan. I am sorry that my defence of him has been a cause of significant upset and concern not least to victims of sexual offences. It was not my intention to do this. To be clear I do not condone any form of abuse and I strongly believe in the independence and integrity of the justice system.
He has also offered his resignation as chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on LGBT+ Global Rights. It comes after Stewart McDonald, Chris Bryant and Joanna Cherry all quit the panel in protest. There’s now a grassroots revolt building in Reigate against Blunt, with speculation that the party whip could be withdrawn.
Could Imran Ahmad Khan’s trial cost the Tories not one, but two MPs?
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