Why hasn’t Yard told MP he’s been accused of rape?
Charlie Elphicke, 47, was suspended from the party in november over unspecified ‘serious allegations’ made by a female former aide.
The married father of two was interviewed under caution last month over allegations of ‘sexual touching’. But his lawyer said he was never told that an allegation of rape had been made against him months earlier.
Yesterday extracts from a signed statement emerged in which a woman claimed that Mr Elphicke made her have sex with him against her will on an occasion between 2015 and 2017. In the statement seen by The Sunday Times, the unnamed woman said: ‘I was explicitly clear I did not want to have sex with him and he was aware of this. I was visibly very upset at the time.’
The alleged victim contacted the Metropolitan Police in november at the height of the Westminster sex scandal and was accompanied to her police interview by Stuart andrew, a Tory whip.
She has since provided a signed witness statement to detectives working for the sexual offences command. Yesterday it emerged that Mr andrew had written to the alleged victim earlier this year regarding ‘alleged inappropriate behaviour’ by Mr Elphicke and ‘nonconsensual sex’ following her initial complaint to the Conservatives last year.
Scotland Yard launched an investigation and quizzed the Dover MP under caution on March 12 about alleged ‘sexual touching’ offences. But detectives did not ask him about the rape claim and a Met Police spokesman confirmed last night that the investigation currently related to sexual touching offences, not rape.
The force refused to say whether any rape allegation had been made to detectives and if so whether this was
‘Justice delayed is justice denied’
being investigated. Yesterday Mr Elphicke’s solicitor, Mark Haslam, said: ‘at no time has any allegation of this nature been raised. I was present when Mr Elphicke was interviewed by the police and I can confirm this.
‘Moreover, had a credible allegation of this nature been made against my client, it is inconceivable that the police would not have questioned him about it by now, over five months later.’
a leading QC criticised Scotland Yard, telling the newspaper: ‘It is important for serious allegations against elected public officials to be dealt with in a swift and timely manner. Justice delayed is justice denied.’
Mr Elphicke firmly denies any wrongdoing.