The former Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan has lost a court of appeal challenge against his conviction for sexual assault. Khan was sentenced to 18 months in jail in May, and expelled from the Conservative party, for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy after plying him with gin at a party in 2008. Two days after winning the West Yorkshire seat in the December 2019 general election, Khan made contact with a relative of the victim expressing concerns about the incident. The victim later went to police. After his conviction, Khan was thrown out of the Tory party and resigned, triggering a byelection in the constituency. The 49-year-old, who had denied the allegation, appealed against his conviction and his sentence. His lawyers argued in the court of appeal last month that his conviction was “unsafe” because the case against him was “weak” and was bolstered by “bad character evidence” in the form of a man who alleged he had been sexually assaulted as an adult by Khan in Pakistan in 2010. They also argued his jail term was too long for the offence and that it should have been suspended. In the ruling on Monday, both appeals were dismissed by three senior judges. Dismissing the conviction appeal, Mr Justice Sweeney, sitting with Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Linden, said they had “no doubt” that the trial was fair and the conviction was safe. He said: “The [trial] judge was plainly entitled to conclude that the prosecution case in relation to [the victim’s] complaint was not weak. Indeed, in our view, the case was far from weak.” He added: “Against that overall background, we have no doubt that the appellant’s trial was fair and that his conviction was safe.” The trial judge, he said, also gave due consideration to suspending the sentence, especially in light of the care needs of Khan’s frail mother and the fact he was her sole carer before he was jailed, but concluded custody was necessary in all the circumstances. “In our view, on the particular facts of this case, he was entitled to reach that conclusion.” Khan’s appeal hearing was attended by the Conservative MP for Reigate, Crispin Blunt, who previously claimed Khan’s conviction was “a serious miscarriage of justice”. Passing sentence in May, 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 [that] 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.” The judge said Khan had displayed a “significant degree of brutality” in the lead-up to the assault, as he dragged his victim upstairs and threw him on to a bed. The crown court also heard how he forced the then teenager to drink gin and tonic and asked him to watch pornography before the attack at a house in Staffordshire, after a party in January 2008. The victim, who cannot be identified, said he was left feeling “scared, vulnerable, numb, shocked and surprised” by the attack. The court heard he was “inconsolable” when he ran to his parents after the incident. A police report was made at the time but no further action was taken because the boy did not want to make a formal complaint. However, he told jurors, “it all came flooding back” when he learned Khan was standing in the general election.