TORY MP Crispin Blunt has issued an apology for his defence of convicted sex offender Imran Ahmad Khan.
Blunt removed a post from his website and Twitter feed in which he had claimed Khan was the victim of a “dreadful miscarriage of justice”, after the Wakefield MP was found guilty on Monday of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008.
In a statement on Twitter, Blunt said he was retracting his initial statement. He also offered his resignation as chair of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on Global LGBT+ Rights, which a number of MPs had resigned from following the original statement.
Blunt had come under pressure from the Conservative hierarchy to withdraw his initial comments.
In the new statement, he said: “On reflection 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.
“It is a particularly difficult time for LGBT+ rights across the world and my statement risks distracting the APPG for Global LGBT+ Rights from its important purpose. I have today offered the officers my resignation so a new Chair can be found to continue the work of the group with full force.”
The retraction follows a statement published on Blunt’s website on Monday which described the jury’s decision in Khan’s case was “nothing short of an international scandal”.
A jury at Southwark Crown Court took about five hours to decide Khan, 48, was guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage boy, who is now 29.
READ MORE: Conservative Party expels Imran Ahmad Khan after MP found guilty of sexual assault
The court heard how Khan, a gay Muslim elected to Parliament in 2019, forced the then-teenager to drink gin and tonic, dragged him upstairs, pushed him on to a bed and asked him to watch pornography before the attack at a house in Staffordshire in January 2008.
But Blunt, who was at the London court on Monday, said the case “relied on lazy tropes about LGBT+ people” and argued the result had “dreadful wider implications” for LGBT Muslims “around the world”.
The Tory MP said: “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.”
Khan’s legal team said he plans to appeal against the conviction.
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