‘Naughty Tory’ Charlie Elphicke challenges sex assault conviction

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‘Naughty Tory’ Charlie Elphicke has lost a Court of Appeal challenge against his two-year jail term for sexually assaulting two women a decade apart.  

The disgraced 49-year-old was jailed in September last year after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assault following a month-long trial at Southwark Crown Court.

The former Conservative MP for Dover immediately signalled his intention to appeal against his conviction – but today was only appealing the sentence.  The Ministry of Justice will not identify the prison he is being held at for ‘privacy reasons’. 

His wife, Natalie, who took over the constituency from her husband in 2019, ended their 25-year marriage upon his conviction. 

However, she offered her support for his appeal ahead of the hearing, saying: ‘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.’ 

But Lady Justice Carr today rejected Elphicke’s appeal bid and said the Crown Court judge was entitled to impose the sentence she did. 

It was not made clear during today’s hearing whether Elphicke still intends to pursue an appeal against his conviction. 

During his trial last year, Southwark Crown Court heard how he called himself a ‘naughty Tory’ as he groped his first victim – a woman known as A who was then in her 30s, and chased her around his family home in 2007 after they shared a bottle of wine.

In 2016, he groped a second woman – known as B, a parliamentary worker in her early 20s, twice in one month when he was MP for Dover.

The court heard how the first sex assault took place after he invited a woman to have a drink with him while his children were asleep and his wife was away on work.

The woman said Elphicke asked her about bondage sex he before kissed her, shoved his hand up her skirt to grope her, and then chased her around the house.

The second victim accused him of kissing her and groping her when the pair met for a drink in Westminster in 2016. But he continued to pester her before molesting her again during a car journey in what was branded a ‘campaign of harassment’ by a judge.

In September, a Southwark Crown Court judge jailed Elphicke and ordered to pay £35,000 in court costs within 12 months.

The High Court today heard how he had spent a total of eight weeks in quarantine while being moved between four different prisons.

He then contracted Covid himself and was forced to isolate for a further two weeks.

Elphicke today attempted to appeal against the sentence at the High Court, but was shut down by a panel of judges.

Representing Elphicke, Rachna Gokani pleaded with judges to suspend his sentence.

She argued that, while the previous judge had sentenced him on the basis that his offences were a breach of trust, the offences did not constitute such a breach even though there was a ‘power imbalance’ in the relationships.

She also claimed the sentence was having a disproportionate impact on his family life, conditions were worse in the prison that previously thought, and the previous judge did not take enough account of his mitigation.

The court had earlier been told that Elphicke has not seen his son in person for six months after he had to be placed in isolation twice.

Ms Gokani said he had also suffered ‘the loss of his career, his marriage and his good character’ and the court should consider the impact on his son of a custodial sentence. 

She added that his touching of the first victim’s naked breast was in doubt and may not have pushed the crime into a more severe sentencing category.

Ms Gokani also told the court that Elphicke was ‘sexually clumsy’ and not a ‘sexual predator’ as he had been described by the sentencing judge.

At the High Court today Lady Justice Sue Carr said: ‘We take the view that the grounds advanced in this application failed to reflect the undoubted seriousness of the offending, they invite us impermissibly to interfere with the judges findings following trial.

‘They do not give rise to any arguable basis for impugning the overall sentence of two years’ immediate imprisonment imposed.

She added: ‘The substantive question was whether the judge was justified in concluding the applicant was someone who without compunction as prepared to exploit women for sexual purposes.

‘The judge was fully entitled to reach the view that the applicant was such a person.

‘He preyed on those in a weaker position than himself using his success and respectability and cover.

‘He used his power to create conditions in which he believed he could act on his sexual desires without fear of consequence.’

The judge also said Elphicke ‘took advantage of his apparently respectable position and the reasonable expectation of (his victims) that he would not seek to make unwanted sexual advances to them’. 

She said there was ‘no basis’ to interfere with the Crown Court judge’s conclusion that a suspended sentence was not an option. 

Sentencing him last year, Mrs Justice Whipple said: ‘You’re a sexual predator who used your success and respectability as a cover.

‘You required both women to come to court and give evidence about the assaults you had made on them.

‘That was not easy for them and they displayed great courage.

‘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 as well.’

She said ‘the gross breach of your position of power’ meant a sentence of immediate custody was required.

He was also ordered to pay £35,000 in costs, although his lawyer said he had ‘a fair bit of debt’ and that his estranged wife Natalie Elphicke loaned him £100,000 to pay for legal bills.

It emerged his 20-year-old daughter Charlotte had become estranged from him while his wife, his successor as Dover MP, ended their 25-year marriage upon his conviction.

In a statement, Elphicke said he would appeal against the conviction, adding he was ‘innocent of any criminal wrongdoing’.

Jurors at his trial heard the first offence took place when Elphicke invited a woman in her early 30s to share a drink with him while his children were asleep and his wife was away with work in the summer of 2007 – the first time she had been absent since the birth of their son.

The woman said Elphicke asked her about bondage and sex, then kissed her and groped her breast before chasing her around his home.

The second complainant said Elphicke also tried to kiss her and then groped her when they met for a drink in Westminster in April 2016.

He then told her: ‘I’m so naughty sometimes.’

She said she spurned Elphicke’s sexual advances, telling jurors she was physically repulsed by him and that he told her he had ‘not been happy for years’ in his marriage.

She said he assaulted her again the following month when he ran his hand up her thigh towards her groin.

Elphicke said he kissed the first victim because he initially felt it was something they both wanted.

He told jurors he was ‘besotted’ with the second complainant, but denied assaulting either of them.

The court heard Elphicke initially denied any knowledge of the allegations against the parliamentary worker when he was summoned before Tory party whips in January 2017.

He became a government whip under David Cameron’s premiership in 2015, but returned to the back benches when Theresa May came to power the following year.

Elphicke had the party whip suspended in 2017 when allegations of sexual assault first emerged, but it was controversially reinstated a year later for a crucial confidence vote in then-prime minister Mrs May.

The whip was withdrawn again the following summer when the Crown Prosecution Service announced its decision to charge Elphicke.