Tories face tough by-election after MP's sex case

LONDON • Britain's ruling Conservative Party faces a tough by-election test after MP Imran Ahmad Khan quit Parliament on Thursday following his conviction for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.

Khan, 48, who represents the northern English city of Wakefield, said he would resign in order to "focus entirely on clearing my name". He plans to appeal against the conviction.

"While legal proceedings are ongoing, I do not believe that it would ordinarily be appropriate to resign," he wrote on Twitter. "However, owing to long delays in the legal process, my constituents have already been without visible parliamentary representation for a year.

"Consequently I am resigning as MP for Wakefield and withdrawing from political life."

A jury found Khan, who has been kicked out of the Conservative Party, guilty of sexually assaulting the boy after forcing him to drink gin at a party in 2008.

The unnamed victim told the court he was left feeling "scared, vulnerable and numb" and that Khan applied "slow caressing" to his legs.

Khan said he only touched the teenager's elbow after he became upset during a conversation about his "confused sexuality".

The victim said he approached the Tories' press office days ahead of the 2019 general election that saw Khan elected to tell them what had happened but "I wasn't taken very seriously".

Khan, who is gay and Muslim, said: "Questions surrounding sexuality in my community are not trivial, and learning from the press about my orientation, drinking and past behaviour before I became an MP has not been easy."

His sentence is to be decided at a later date.

Khan won the seat in the Conservative Party's 2019 electoral landslide, and the by-election created by his resignation will be a test of the party's chances of holding on to the so-called "Red Wall" seats in former Labour heartlands.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE