‘Naughty Tory tried to grab my bottom then chased me from room’

Weeping woman says ex-MP attacked her at his home

A WOMAN wept yesterday as she described locking herself in a room after allegedly being groped by an ex-Conservative MP she saw as ‘asexual’.

Charlie Elphicke, 49, ‘jumped’ on the woman after asking whether she liked ‘silk and leather’ and ‘bondage’, Southwark Crown Court heard.

She told his sexual assault trial yesterday that she found the initial conversation ‘excruciating’ and ‘embarrassing’.

However, after sharing a £40 bottle of wine at the townhouse where he lived with his wife and children, Elphicke was said to have attempted to kiss the woman – a move described as an ‘open mouth smush’.

He then allegedly pinned her down by her shoulders and grabbed her breast.

The accuser, giving evidence via video link, said she then told him to ‘get off’ and ran away to another room in the house, only for Elphicke to ‘pursue’ her saying: ‘I’m a naughty Tory’.

Elphicke’s two children were upstairs at the property in Belgravia, central London, at the time and his finance lawyer wife Natalie, who succeeded him as the MP for Dover last year, was away on business, the trial was told.

Speaking through tears about the alleged 2007 assault, the woman, who was in her early 30s at the time, said: ‘In my mind I was like, “I have to get out of here.” My adrenaline was going.

‘I was really, really shocked. I never thought in a million years that he was that kind of person that would ever do anything like that and I thought it was very clear that I would not be remotely interested in him anyway.’

The witness said she and Elphicke had been chatting in the garden at about 9pm before he started asking what she liked to do ‘in a sexual way’ with her boyfriend.

She said: ‘I was thinking, “oh, gosh, how embarrassing,” and thinking it’s like having a chat with a gay friend. I was like, [mimicking laughing], let’s not go there.’

The woman added: ‘I sort of wagged my finger at him and said, “We don’t need to talk about that kind of thing”. He was like a totally asexual person to me.

‘He started saying, “Do you like silk and leather?” and bondage. He was jovial, jokey, excited maybe, in an animated way. I was just thinking, “Oh God, how embarrassing”.’ As they moved inside the house, the woman sat next to Elphicke on the sofa before he ‘jumped’ on her.

Asked by prosecutor Eloise Marshall QC what happened next, she said: ‘He pursued me, saying really bizarre things, just embarrassing. He said, “I’m a naughty Tory.” He was trying to grope me and grab my bum. He was pursuing me and saying things and trying to grab me I guess. He was saying in a singsong voice: “Oooh, I’m a naughty Tory, I’m a naughty Tory.”

‘He was following me like it was a race. I couldn’t understand what was happening. I was thinking: “Get away.” I got to the room and shut the door. It stopped him getting anywhere.’

The woman added: ‘I was really worried about what he would do because he was knocking on the door and things.’ She said she left the house in a taxi after phoning her sister and a friend because she was ‘really scared’.

After the incident, Elphicke told the woman he had ‘really enjoyed’ their evening and suggested they should ‘do it again’, it was said.

But she apparently told him: ‘Oh my God, no, 100 per cent no. I was disgusted by it.’ Elphicke denies three counts of sexual assault against two women between 2007 and 2016. The trial continues.

MP ‘groped woman then sang: I’m a naughty Tory’

From yesterday’s Mail