Few MPs have had such an inglorious and brief career as Imran Ahmad Khan. Elected in December 2019, he was charged in June 2021 with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008. After having the whip duly removed by the Tories, he was subsequently tried and found guilty in April 2022, for which he was jailed for 18 months. That in turn caused a by-election in his Red Wall Wakefield seat: a by-election which swung so convincingly towards Labour that it prompted the no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson which precipitated the end of his premiership.
In a career full of disgrace though Mr S has uncovered what may be Ahmad Khan’s lasting legacy. Expense data released today by IPSA – the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which regulates MPs expense details – shows that the former MP claimed £3,218 in legal services costs in October 2021. The claim was for Tyler Hoffman, a Wakefield solicitors’ firm run by former Tory councillor Afek Akbar, and is dated a month after Ahmad Khan had pleaded not guilty at the Old Bailey in London. It comes after former Hartlepool MP Mike Hill was last year found to have charged IPSA legal costs after being accused of breaching parliament’s sexual misconduct policy.
That’s not the only claim by Ahmad Khan too: he also billed IPSA £160 for ‘office costs’ to do gardening costs like ‘over hanging tree branches, spraying weed killer and clearing leaves’ in December. Presumably he thought he’d be in office for longer than he actually was. Still, not all of Ahmad Khan’s colleagues have abandoned him. Senior backbencher Crispin Blunt initially tried to defend Ahmad Khan after he was found guilty in April, U-turning only after a wage of outrage. And Mr S hears that the onetime prisons minister has since paid a visit to his former colleague in HMP Wandsworth, where Ahmad Khan currently resides. Blunt’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Gardening, legal costs and now free accommodation for the next year: Ahmad Khan certainly has done well out of the taxpayers of Wakefield.
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