Crispin Blunt deletes criticism of MP Imran Ahmad Khan's sex offence conviction

Ex-minister Crispin Blunt has deleted a statement calling the conviction of a fellow MP for sexual assault a "dreadful miscarriage of justice".

Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan was found guilty on Monday of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008.

Mr Blunt said the case relied on "lazy tropes" and claimed it had "dreadful implications" for LGBT+ Muslims.

He was urged to withdraw the statement by Tory party bosses who said it was "wholly unacceptable".

Mr Blunt has yet to explain why he deleted the message from his website on Tuesday morning or whether he still holds the view he expressed on Monday. The BBC has contacted him for a response.

Labour called his comments "disgraceful" and said he should be suspended from the Conservative Party.

Five members of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for global LGBT+ rights, which Mr Blunt chairs, have either resigned or said they will do so in response to his comments.

Armed forces minister James Heappey told BBC Breakfast Mr Blunt was "definitely not speaking for the government", which respected the court's verdict.

Khan was thrown out of the Conservative Party after Southwark Crown Court delivered its verdict on Monday but he has said he will appeal against his conviction.

Following Mr Blunt's criticism of the verdict, the Conservative Party said Khan had been found guilty by a jury of his peers, adding: "We completely reject any allegations of impropriety against our independent judiciary."

Mr Blunt, a friend of Khan who attended some of his trial, is the MP for Reigate and from 2015 to 2017 was the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee.

He also previously served as the parliamentary under-secretary for prisons and youth justice within the Ministry of Justice.

In the now deleted statement on his website, he said he was "appalled and distraught" by the outcome of the trial, calling it "an international scandal, with dreadful wider implications for millions of LGBT+ Muslims around the world".

He claimed that the case against Khan had "relied on lazy tropes about LGBT+ people that we might have thought we had put behind us decades ago".

"I hope for the return of Imran Ahmad Khan to the public service that has exemplified his life to date," he said.

Two Labour MPs, Chris Bryant and Kate Osborne, and three from the SNP, Stewart McDonald, Joanna Cherry, and Martin Docherty-Hughes, have announced their resignation from the APPG for global LGBT+ rights.

Mr Bryant, who chairs both the committee on standards and the committee on privileges, called Mr Blunt's comments "completely inappropriate".

Following Khan's conviction, Labour said he "should immediately resign so a by-election can take place and the people of Wakefield can get the representation they deserve".

During his trial, Khan denied groping a teenager at a party in Staffordshire in January 2008.

Southwark Crown Court heard he forced the youngster to drink gin, dragged him upstairs, and asked him to watch pornography before assaulting him.

Following the verdict, the Conservative Party said Khan had been "expelled with immediate effect".

Khan is set to be sentenced at a later date.