Ex-MP tells jury he was ‘besotted’ with ‘victim’
FORMER MP Charlie Elphicke has admitted he was “besotted” with a Parliamentary worker who accused him of sexual assault.
But he denied groping her breast and running his hand up her leg.
He also told the court he did not pull her on to his lap and give her a “disgusting, slobbery” open-mouthed kiss.
The married dad of two said he and the alleged victim, aged in her 20s, exchanged “flirty” texts and emojis.
Elphicke, 49, told London’s Southwark Crown Court: “I was very struck by her and I lost my head over her. I thought she was lovely and wonderful.
Affair
“I texted her how much I liked her in many ways and how I had not met someone like her for a very, very long time... and I wanted us to take our relationship to a different level.”
Asked to describe his feelings, he replied: “Besotted. I thought she was amazing. I hadn’t felt like this in years... and I thought it was a two-way street.” But she made it clear she did not want to have an affair, the court heard.
Elphicke denies twice sexually assaulting her on separate occasions in a Westminster office in 2016. He said: “I’d only have touched her in a normal, social form of touching.”
He also denies a separate charge of sexually assaulting a woman in her 30s at his home in Belgravia, central London, in 2007.
She previously told the court that he chased her around, chanting: “I’m a naughty Tory!”
Elphicke was MP for Dover from 2010-19, when he was succeeded by his wife Natalie, who is standing by him.The trial continues.