A British Conservative MP will appear in court next month after a minor was accused of sexual assault, a charge she denied “very strongly” on Friday.

Read also:Former British MP sentenced to two years in prison for sexual assault

Imran Ahmed Khan, 47, MP for Wakefield (Northern England) and member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party, is accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008. He appeared in court on Thursday in Westminster, London, by videoconferencing. The law firm representing him, and pleaded “not guilty”. Judge Paul Goldspring has referred the case to London’s Old Bailey Criminal Court, where MPs will appear on July 15.

In a statement posted on Twitter on Friday, Imran Ahmed Khan said that he “with the greatest of steadfastness denied the allegation, which is over thirteen years old.” “It is shocking, disturbing and painful to be accused of something I did not do,” he wrote, “to work to prove my innocence”. Before being elected as an MP in 2019, Imran Ahmed Khan worked for the United Nations as a Special Assistant for Political Affairs in Mogadishu, Somalia, says his website.