They’ve hung my husband out to dry
End ‘kangaroo courts’, says wife of MP who lost Tory whip
THE wife of Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, who was suspended by the party over ‘serious allegations’, yesterday demanded an end to ‘kangaroo courts’ for those accused.
Natalie Elphicke, 46, said her husband had been ‘hung out to dry’ when he had the party whip taken away without being told details of the claims against him.
She drew a comparison between the case of her husband, the MP for Dover, and what happened to Carl Sargeant, who took his own life last week after being sacked as a minister in the Welsh government for sexual misconduct without knowing the allegations against him.
Mr Elphicke – who denies any criminal wrongdoing – has claimed that the Press were tipped off about the action being taken against him before he was told.
He said he had ‘every sympathy’ for those who have been sexually harassed and denied justice, but added that he too faced a ‘denial of justice’.
Yesterday, in an article for The Sunday Times, his wife said: ‘Rushing to judgment has led to the death of one man who lived to serve those who elected him. It must not be allowed to lead to any more.’
Mrs Elphicke, chief executive of the Housing and Finance Institute, said she ‘cannot begin to describe the hurt and strain, the confusion and fear for me and my family’. She told how she and her husband learned the news from journalists on the evening of Friday, November 3.
‘We were enjoying a quiet family night,’ she wrote. ‘My husband and I sat side by side chatting, catching up on the week, when just after 9pm my husband’s phone rang. It was a journalist from the national Press. The journalist told Charlie that he had lost the Tory party whip and stood accused of a serious crime. It was the first indication that anything was wrong.
‘The phone started ringing from a flurry of media outlets. It was many minutes before the Chief Whip [Julian Smith] spoke to Charlie. He would not tell Charlie of what he was accused.’ Mrs Elphicke called on the Prime Minister to set up a ‘truly independent and non-political arbitrator’ to investigate the claims against her husband and other MPs.
‘I ask Theresa May to show us her compassion and her commitment to principles of justice and our British way of life,’ she wrote. ‘When Parliament returns this week I ask her to stop the desperate madness, to put an end to these kangaroo courts by political central offices.
‘As Conservatives we cannot stand by when injustice is heaped upon injustice. When one of our own is thrown to the wolves – is hung out to dry in this manner without even being told of what he is accused.
‘It happened to my husband. It happened to Carl Sargeant. It could happen to anyone.
‘These are serious matters. Where issues are potentially criminal, complainants must go to the police. No ifs or buts. They are the proper authority, not a bunch of politicians.’
Meanwhile, Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones faced fresh pressure to step down last night after Steve Jones, who served as a special adviser to the Labour politician from 2009 to 2014, said the atmosphere in his government office was ‘pure poison’.
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