Naughty Tory’s descent into ‘total disgrace’ is complete as he’s jailed for two years
Sex attacks cost him his marriage, daughter, home and job
DISGRACED former MP Charlie Elphicke was branded a sex predator yesterday as he was jailed for assaulting two women.
The self-proclaimed ‘naughty Tory’, 49, was sentenced to two years after using his respectability to get his victims alone and force himself on them.
His barrister said Elphicke’s jailing completed a ‘descent into total disgrace’.
It follows his split from his wife, becoming estranged from his daughter, and losing his careers as MP and barrister.
He also has to sell his £1.4million family home to fund the £35,000 court costs he was ordered to pay plus his legal fees, which he says have left him in debt.
Moments after being led from the dock, Elphicke released a statement to say he would appeal against his conviction.
He said: ‘I know that I am innocent of any criminal wrongdoing and will continue to fight to clear my name.’
In a surprising move, his estranged wife and successor as Dover MP Natalie Elphicke, 49, also released a statement announcing her support for his appeal.
Mrs Elphicke, who loaned him £100,000 to fund his defence, had announced she was leaving him after 25 years moments after he was convicted of three counts of sexual assault in July.
Yesterday she said: ‘I fully support Charlie in his appeal against both his convictions and today’s excessive sentence. There is no doubt that Charlie behaved badly.
‘However, everyone, Charlie included, has the right to a fair trial, and I don’t believe that he has had one.’
Pleading for mercy from the judge, Elphicke’s defence argued his life had been left in ruins.
As well as his wife leaving him, his 20-year-old daughter Charlotte had cut all ties with him and lost her place at Oxbridge due to failing grades.
His 13-year-old son has also suffered academically after bullies taunted him that his father was a ‘rapist’ – even though he was not accused of this.
But jailing him at London’s Southwark Crown Court, Mrs Justice Whipple told him: ‘Both women described very similar and shocking assaults.
‘Their victim impact statements demonstrate the lasting damage done... You’re a sexual predator who used your success and respectability as a cover.
‘You got them alone with you, lured them into a false sense of security with wine and chat, and then you attacked them without warning, trying to kiss them, grabbing their breasts, trapping them beneath you.
‘Then you treated what you did as a joke, saying yourself that you were “naughty” in an attempt to trivialise your actions.
‘They told the truth, you told a pack of lies – not just to the jury but, as became clear, to your wife, the whips and the police.’ She said ‘the gross breach of your position of power’ meant a jail sentence was necessary.
Ian Winter QC, defending, had told the court that as a result of the trial Elphicke had lost a successful career as a barrister along with his parliamentary job.
He told the judge: ‘Shortly, Mr Elphicke’s descent into total disgrace will be complete.
‘Mr Elphicke completely accepts and demonstrates remorse that it is his conduct alone that has brought him to this point. The only further degradation the court could inflict on him would to take also his liberty.’
The court heard that Elphicke is now dependent on his wife while they struggle to sell their family home in Kent.
Mr Winter added that he had demonstrated ‘dedicated public service’ but had ‘lost his head’ during the ‘isolated incidents’.
His defence also presented the court with 34 statements as character references, including a number from ‘serving MPs’.
Elphicke forced himself on both victims in almost identical attacks by kissing them openmouthed and groping their breasts before referring to himself as ‘naughty’, the court heard.
In the first assault in 2007 he attacked a woman in her 30s in his Belgravia townhouse as his children slept before chasing her as if in a ‘Benny Hill sketch’, chanting: ‘I’m a naughty Tory.’
He also preyed on a young parliamentary worker in 2016, pestering her for sex before twice assaulting her.
Prosecutor Eloise Marshall QC said this involved a degree of
‘You’re a sexual predator’
‘Degree of grooming’
grooming. Elphicke, who became a Government whip under David Cameron in 2015, had his party whip suspended in 2017 when the allegations first emerged.
He was controversially reinstated a year later for a confidence vote in then-PM Theresa May. The whip was withdrawn again the following summer when Elphicke was charged.
The judge told Elphicke he would be likely to serve up to half his sentence.