‘Naughty Tory’ Charlie Elphicke is found guilty of three sex attacks against two women

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The Conservative MP wife of self-proclaimed ‘naughty Tory’ Charlie Elphicke today announced she will divorce him – minutes after he was convicted of three sex attacks on two women and warned he may be jailed. 

Natalie Elphicke, 49, who took her husband’s seat in Dover and Deal last year, was seen leaving Southwark Crown Court in dark sunglasses this afternoon after her spouse was found guilty of groping his victims. 

Confirming she was leaving him, Mrs Elphicke, who has two teenage children with the convicted sex attacker, then tweeted: ‘Today’s verdict is one that brings profound sorrow. It ends my 25 year marriage to the only man I have ever loved. I would ask for some personal space and time to come to terms with the shocking events of the last 3 years’.  

Her disgraced husband, also 49, an ex-lawyer and MP for ten years once touted as a possible cabinet minister, sighed and looked at his lawyer as the jury recorded guilty verdicts in each of the three sexual assault allegations after two days of deliberations. 

The trial judge, Mrs Justice Whipple, released Elphicke on bail to be sentenced on September 15, but warned him he may go to prison: ‘There is a very real possibility he faces immediate custody’. 

In 2007 the perverted former politician had plunged his hand down a woman’s blouse after talking ‘suggestively’ about bondage in his £2million London townhouse while his wife was away on business and their two children were asleep next door. When she tried to flee he chased her around the kitchen trying to grab her bottom while squealing ‘I’m a naughty Tory’ in a scene compared to a Benny Hill sketch.

In April 2016 he groped and tried to kiss a parliamentary worker, half his age, in her early 20s, while out for a drink in Westminster. A month later he ran his hand up her thigh towards her groin.

He also had a consensual affair with a third woman for two years, his trial heard, and Elphicke sobbed in the witness box when he said his 25-year marriage was now ‘hanging by a thread’. Today his wife has decided it is over.

Mrs Elphicke refused to be in the court with her husband when he was convicted. Her husband then joined her in a private room where they had a brief conversation without his lawyers present, which lasted around 10 minutes, MailOnline can reveal. She then stormed out of court alone, jumping into a waiting taxi from where she tweeted that their 25-year marriage was over.  

A grim-faced Elphicke then left the court without comment and climbed into a black cab. Twenty minutes earlier his wife left the court alone, having dutifully accompanied him to and from court every day throughout the trial, always holding his hand. 

Elphicke faces a six-week wait to hear if he will be sent to prison or given a suspended sentence.

His wife was not in the court room when the guilty verdicts came and left after speaking to him alone. 

For the entirety of the three-and-a-half Elphicke arrived at Southwark Crown Court each day with Natalie clutching his hand as they faced the waiting  photographers. 

Once inside the building however, they went their separate ways and she did not sit in court one where he was being tried, opting to remain in a room that had been assigned to her so that she could continue with her Parliamentary work.

Once the day’s proceedings came to an end, the couple would emerge from the Southwark courthouse together. From the moment allegations against him emerged, Mrs Elphicke has chosen to publicly stand by him but as he admitted while giving evidence, their marriage is ‘hanging by a thread.’

Sobbing in the witness box, Elphicke confessed: ‘She (Mrs Elphicke) comes into court with me every day. She’s supporting me throughout proceedings. But things are not good. It hangs by a thread. I’ve got a lot of work to do. She’s most upset that I didn’t tell her at the outset.’

Mrs Elphicke was not in court to hear her husband admit to an affair with another woman who was not one of the complainants in the Southwark trial. He told jurors he had a sexual relationship with the woman, from 2015, but had not initially told his wife, who succeeded him as MP for Dover.

He said: ‘I didn’t know how to explain it to Natalie – it was an emotional attachment (to the other woman). I think she would be very hurt, and I didn’t want that.’

The court heard that he only revealed details of the affair to his wife in March 2018, once rumours began circulating within his constituency. 

Mrs Elphicke, 49 who is also a trained solicitor only learned of Elphicke’s feelings towards his second victim, a parliamentary worker and that he had propositioned her, while she was going through material for his case.

Elphicke admitted in court that she became ‘very cross with me because she thought I was having an affair.’

She was not in court one when her husband admitted that had been ‘besotted’ with the young parliamentary worker, who is in her 20s and that he wanted to start an affair with her.

He cried: ‘As the evening wore on, I said to her how much I liked her in many ways and how I had not, er, met someone like her for a very, very long time and how I was clearly liking her a lot.’ Elphicke admitted not telling the truth to police when they asked him about the parliamentary worker, he is accused of sexually assaulting in 2016.

He said he didn’t want to ‘put my marriage in jeopardy’ and that it would ’cause chaos’. He later added: ‘I should not have lied to the police, I should have just fronted it up.’ 

The former Conservative MP asked his first victim about whips, silk, leather and bondage before forcing an open-mouthed kiss on her and grabbing her breasts.

His wife, finance lawyer Natalie Elphicke OBE, was away on business six months after giving birth to their second child at the time of the attack at his Belgravia townhouse in 2007.

The woman, in her 30s, told Southwark Crown Court she stayed silent about the 2007 incident to ‘protect his family.’

Breaking down in court, she told jurors: ‘He tried to kiss me and I moved my head, he pushed me down by my shoulders, he had his knee between my legs and he was groping my breast.

‘I was just shocked – really, really shocked. He was saying really bizarre things that are embarrassing like ‘I’m a naughty Tory’.

‘He was trying to grope me and trying to grab my bum. He was following me, it was like a race. I couldn’t understand what was happening.’

The victim said Elphicke was ‘very animated, excited and clearly enjoying himself’.

She said she phoned her sister to tell her what had happened after fleeing his home, who later told police the episode sounded like ‘a sketch from The Benny Hill Show’.

But after a 2017 news report accused the Dover MP of similar behaviour she realised ‘I need to do my part and I went to police’.

The former Tory whip was also accused of two further sex assaults on a Parliamentary worker twice nine years later in 2016 inside the Palace of Westminster.

The young staffer, in her early 20s at the time, explicitly spurned Elphicke’s advances after he shoved his hand down her top and grabbed her breasts.

But he went on to run his hand up her thigh before asking her to rub sunscreen on him and ‘rolling his eyes round’ while telling her he wanted to kiss her. 

He then told her: ‘I’m so naughty sometimes.’ The victim said: ‘He had his mouth open, continually trying to kiss me. It was like a disgusting, slobbery mess.’

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

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

The woman, who wept while giving evidence, added: ‘I think he thought that if he kept going that I would one day cave. But I wouldn’t.’

The victim said he was known within Parliament as a bullying ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ personality and she had been warned by a friend to stay away from him.

The married father-of-two sobbed through his evidence as he admitted having a two-year affair with a third woman while in the witness box.

He said he slept with his lover three times between 2015 and 2017 but claimed he had never felt a ‘significant attachment’ to her like he had with the young staffer.

Elphicke claimed he was still in the process of trying to salvage his marriage after coming clean about the infidelity to 49-year-old Natalie.

He claimed that he had lied to police about his attraction to the Parliamentary worker because it would have been the straw that broke the back of his marriage.

The former whip told the court he thought the desire was mutual and believed they were consenting to his advances.

But a jury of 11, comprising eight women and three men, dismissed his claims as lies, finding him guilty of three sexual assaults with unanimous verdicts.  

Metropolitan Police Detective Sergeant Michael McInerney, who gave evidence in the trial, said upon verdict: ‘These were alarming, distressing incidents for both women and I would like to acknowledge their courage in reporting the incidents and co-operating with the police investigation.

‘Elphicke was persistent in his sexual advances and showed a lack of self-restraint and regard for the women, whose emotional wellbeing and professional lives were affected by what happened.

‘Victims of non-recent sexual offences should not be deterred from reporting what happened to them to police.

‘Specially trained investigators will investigate the claims and seek prosecutions where possible, whilst providing all the necessary support for victims.’   

Elphicke said he kissed the first complainant but said he initially felt it was something they both wanted.

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

The court heard Elphicke had an affair with a third woman, not a complainant in this case, between 2015 and 2017, but that he did not tell Mrs Elphicke until March 2018 when he was questioned by police.

He also kept his kiss with the first woman secret for around a decade, the court heard.

None of the three women can be named for legal reasons.

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 later called on his ‘friend’, the former attorney general Dominic Grieve, to accompany him to a second meeting, although he failed to mention to Mr Grieve that he had strong feelings for the woman.

Elphicke also admitted lying to police about the same issue, banking on him not being prosecuted and therefore being able to keep it from his wife.

But he told jurors he had to come clean about his ’emotional attachment’ to the parliamentary worker when legally qualified Mrs Elphicke pored over the case files during lockdown and accused him of having an affair with the woman more than 20 years his junior.

Dressed in a dark blue suit, Elphicke stared somberly at the floor as a jury of nine men and three women returned their verdicts.

Wife Natalie was not in court to hear the jury even though she had accompanied him to Southwark Crown Court each day throughout the trial. She sat in a separate room as she has done throughout the proceedings.

Elphicke appeared stunned as Mrs Justice Whipple warned him a custodial sentence is ‘still on the table’ when he returns for sentencing on 15 September.

After leaving the court room, Elphicke went to a private room to speak to his wife and his lawyer, Ian Winter QC.

Natalie stormed out of court alone while her husband remained inside talking to his legal team. Dressed in a smart blue suit, she jumped into a waiting black cab.

When asked by MailOnline to comment about the verdict, she replied: ‘Please don’t speak to me.’ Mrs Elphicke then hollered: ‘Can you just drive,’ with the taxi then speeding away.

Elphicke 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.

He 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.