Turncoat MP asked Minister to pull strings for husband’s sex abuse trial
Amid backlash over Elphicke’s defection... another bombshell
A LABOUR MP who defected from the Tories has been accused of trying to exert ‘improper’ influence over her ex-husband’s sexual assault trial by personally lobbying the Justice Secretary.
Natalie Elphicke, whose switch to Sir Keir Starmer’s party last week triggered a fierce Labour backlash, faces claims that she complained to Sir Robert Buckland about the judge who was due to preside over Charlie Elphicke’s 2020 trial for sexually assaulting two women.
The Mail on Sunday has been told that when Ms Elphicke made objections about Lady Justice Whipple, Sir Robert furiously pointed out it would be wrong for him to interfere.
Last night Sir Robert said: ‘She was told in no uncertain terms that it would have been completely inappropriate to speak to the judge about the trial at all.’
The claims are likely to embarrass Sir Keir, a former Director of Public Prosecutions.
The clash came after former MP Elphicke’s trial was listed to be one of the first cases to be heard after the first Covid lockdown. Sources said Ms Elphicke asked Sir Mark Spencer, then the Chief Whip, to arrange a meeting with the Justice Secretary under the guise of ‘discussing the justice system’.
But during the exchange with Sir
Robert, Ms Elphicke is to have ‘gone straight in, all guns blazing’ to complain about the timing of the case against her then-husband because, as one of the first inperson trials after lockdown, there would be a disproportionate amount of media interest.
She is said to have objected to the seniority of Lady Justice Whipple, who was then a High Court judge, which she implied would contribute to the publicity the case attracted, and suggested that the judge’s prominence made it more likely that she would ‘throw the book’ at her husband.
At the meeting in Sir Robert’s Commons office, Ms Elphicke is also understood to have argued that the trial should be ‘split’ between the two assault claims, which the sources understood to be a bid to lessen the likelihood of his conviction.
Last night Ms Elphicke denied this ‘characterisation’ of the meetinterference, ing. Her then-husband stood down as MP for Dover in 2019, before his trial, and was succeeded by his wife. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison. Ms Elphicke ended their 25-year marriage after his conviction.
In another case of attempted Ms Elphicke used Parliamentary headed paper to write to Dame Kathryn Thirwall, the senior presiding judge for England and Wales, and Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the Queen’s Bench Division, to make representations about Elphicke’s pre-sentencing hearing.
Her actions led to her being suspended by the House of Commons Committee on Standards for ‘an attempt improperly to influence judicial proceedings’.
Sir Keir’s chief of staff, the former senior civil servant Sue Gray, is at the centre of the unrest over Ms Elphicke’s defection, having played a key role in securing the ‘turncoat’ behind the backs of senior members of the Shadow
Cabinet. Last night a friend of Sir Robert said: ‘Robert had made it clear that it would be improper to talk about the trial, and he could only discuss general justice issues.
‘But Natalie then launched into a diatribe about the timing. He said that it was not for him to interfere with the listing functions of the judiciary. They are wholly independent.’
A source close to Sir Mark said: ‘Of course, what she bloody did was go straight into that meeting all guns blazing.’
A Labour Party spokesman said: ‘Natalie Elphicke totally rejects that characterisation of the meeting. If Robert Buckland had any genuine concerns about the meeting, then he should have raised them at the time, rather than making claims to the newspapers now Natalie has chosen to join the Labour Party.’
‘What she did was to go in all guns blazing’