the times | Tuesday April 5 2022 25
News
MP accused of sex assault
on aid worker as he slept
David Brown
A Conservative MP who is on trial for
sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy
performed a sex act on a sleeping Brit-
ish aid worker in Pakistan, a court was
told yesterday.
The aid worker said that he reported
Imran Khan, now MP for Wakefield, to
the British High Commission and the
Foreign Office but no action was taken.
He told Southwark crown court that
he was assaulted in November 2010
when he was in his early twenties and
working on a project funded by the For-
eign Office.
Khan is on trial accused of forcing a
teenage boy to drink gin and tonic and
then groping him as he lay terrified in
bed in Staffordshire in January 2008.
The aid worker said that he regularly
saw Khan get drunk even though Mus-
lims are forbidden from drinking in
Pakistan, and that Khan would tickle
him, which he objected to. He said that
Khan had booked one room for them
both at a guesthouse during a visit to
Peshawar. Khan had been drinking
during the evening and offered him a
sleeping pill when they returned.
The “next thing” he remembered was
Khan performing a sex act on him after
removing his underwear. “I pushed him
off me and told him to stop and said,
‘What the f*** are you doing?” he said.
He immediately resigned from the
project and reported the incident.
“I wanted it to be on record,” he said.
He contacted police in the UK after
reading about Khan being charged
with sexually assaulting the boy.
Police were called by the teenage
boy’s family the day after the alleged in-
cident in January 2008. The boy con-
tacted police again in 2019.
Khan had been to a party and was of-
fered a spare bed in the teenager’s
room. Khan told the police that the only
contact was a reassuring touch of the el-
bow when the boy was apparently upset
after Khan suggested the type of
pornography the boy watched was an
indication of his sexuality. Khan denies
sexual assault. The trial continues.GUY CORBISHLEY/ALAMYA security chief and a former royal ma-
rine commando have admitted stealing
cash and confidential papers from the
United Arab Emirates embassy in
London.
Dean Manister, who was head of
security, and marine Lee Hurford, who
was working at the embassy in Belgra-
via, stole papers, passports and cash
from three safes in September 2018.
The pair had previously been
accused of attempting to use the stolen
documents and other items to black-
mail an unnamed VIP at the embassy
for £3 million, but the prosecution at
Insiders stole cash and papers from embassy
Southwark crown court chose not to
pursue conspiracy charges.
Tyrone Silcott, for the prosecution,
said that Manister, 51, was not physical-
ly involved in the thefts but had used
information and security details that he
gained as head of security to assist Hur-
ford in the thefts.
Hurford, 49, was previously said to
have stolen £62,040, $9,100 and €500 in
cash as well as a security card, while
employed by the embassy as a close
protection officer.
Manister, from Colchester, Essex,
spent seven years as head of security at
a Bank of England cash centre and had
worked as assistant vice-president ofsecurity at JP Morgan, the investment
bank and financial services holding
company, according to his current em-
ployer’s website.
He joined the security firm FSI as a
consultant in 2019 after 15 months at
the UAE’s embassy.
Manister and Hurford, who has
owned a boxing gym in Dubai, had
been accused of planning to extort
£3 million from the VIP in exchange for
the return of the items, which were
stolen on the night of September 14,
2018.
Hurford and Manister denied con-
spiracy to blackmail and the charge was
ordered to lie on file.“Either Mr Manister had a key still or
he still had a password which he gave to
Mr Hurford for overriding the safe,” Sil-
cott said.
Manister admitted aiding and abet-
ting Hurford in stealing large amounts
of cash, embassy documents, inter-
national passports and receipts from
the embassy. Hurford admitted stealing
cash, embassy papers, international
passports and receipts.
Included in the charges was
reference to “paperwork belonging to
Keith Robert Charles” and an ID card
belonging to Abdul Azim Mohammed,
but it was not clear what the two men’s
links to the embassy were. MartinGriffith, QC, the judge, renewed their
bail on condition that they do not to ap-
ply for international travel documents
and leave their surrendered passports
with the police. The men will be sen-
tenced at a later date.
Silcott said Manister was not physi-
cally involved but used the information
he gained as head of security to assist
Hurford in the thefts. Hurford, of
Leeds, admitted two charges of theft
and one of attempted theft.
Manister and Hurford had appeared
at court via videolink from their respec-
tive solicitors’ offices and denied con-
spiracy to blackmail and the charge was
ordered to lie on the court file.John Simpson
Bawd stiff Dirty Corset, a dark and comedic tale about a company of actors
in 17th-century England, opens tonight at the Pleasance Theatre in London