A former Tory MP who groped a 15-year-old boy has been freed from prison after serving half his sentence.
Imran Ahmad Khan, 49, was jailed in May last year for 18 months after being found guilty of sexually assaulting the teenager after a party in 2008.
The disgraced Wakefield MP lost a Court of Appeal challenge against his conviction and sentence in December.
He reportedly left HMP Brixton in south London on Tuesday morning and was met by friends who helped him carry his belongings to a car before he was driven away.
Pictures published by the Wakefield Express appeared to show Khan with long hair and a beard after serving nine months of his sentence behind bars.
The Ministry of Justice later confirmed he had been released.
Two days after winning his West Yorkshire seat in the December 2019 general election, Khan contacted one of the victim’s relatives expressing concerns about the 2008 incident, and the victim later went to police.
Khan was expelled from the Conservative Party and resigned following his conviction, triggering a by-election in the constituency which was won by Labour.
His court case heard that he displayed a “significant degree of brutality” in the lead-up to the assault at a house in Staffordshire, as he dragged his victim upstairs and threw him on to a bed, forcing the then teenager to drink gin and tonic and asking him to watch pornography.
The victim told a jury he felt “scared, vulnerable, numb, shocked and surprised” after Khan touched his feet and legs. He said Khan came within “a hair’s breadth” of his privates as he tried to sleep in a top bunk bed.
He ran to his parents and a police report was made at the time, but no further action was taken because the youngster did not want to make a formal complaint.
But he told jurors “it all came flooding back” when Khan stood as a Conservative in the December 2019 general election.
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Former MP loses appeal against sexual assault conviction
MP guilty of sexually assaulting 15-year-old boy at house in 2008
Sentencing him, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker said: “The only regret you feel is towards yourself for having found yourself in the predicament you face as a result of your actions some 14 years ago.
“Although it may well be over the years you had let yourself believe you had got away with having committed this offence, I am sure you were aware from the outset there was a risk there would be a day of reckoning.”
