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Tory MPs who wrote to judges during Charlie Elphicke sexual assault trial under investigation
Parliament’s sleaze watchdog is also investigating Boris Johnson over a £15,000 holiday he took to Mustique with his fiancée
10 May 2021 • 9:24pm
Natalie Elphicke, pictured alongside her husband and former MP Charlie Elphicke, is one of the Conservative MPs under investigation
Credit: Dominic Lipinski /PA
Five Conservative MPs who used Commons stationery to lobby judges over a former colleague s sexual assault case are being investigated by Parliament’s sleaze watchdog.
Natalie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, signed a letter to the president of the Queen’s Bench Division and the senior presiding judge for England and Wales concerning a character reference constituents provided for her former husband, Charlie Elphicke. He was later found guilty of three counts of sexual assault against two women and sentenced to two years imprisonment last July.
High Court rules on public attendance of meetings amid confusion over rules
The High Court has ruled that where council meetings are ‘open to the public’, local authorities should allow members of the public to attend in person and that the requirement of public attendance cannot be satisfied through video streaming.
However, supplementary guidance that came out yesterday following a judgement against allowing remote council meetings also stated that the numbers of public attendees can be subject to current public health guidance - thereby allowing local authorities to address Covid safety concerns by capping the numbers.
The new guidance has crushed hopes that public attendance of council meetings could be limited to live streams amid concern over the risks of attendees contracting coronavirus.
The defendant NHS Trust had breached s 242(1B)(b) and (c) of the National Health Service Act 2006 by failing to make arrangements which had secured that service users had been involved: (i) in the development and consideration of the proposals for the designation of the hospital as a ‘Green site’ (namely that there would be no Covid-19 related treatment on the site); and (ii) in the making of the decision itself. The Administrative Court, in allowing the claim in part and in construing the relevant section of the Act, held that, ultimately, the question was whether the arrangements, looked at as a whole, had secured the opportunity for meaningful involvement or participation in the specified matters, and that the relevant duty contemplated service user involvement before the event, and at the formative stage. The court held that, on the facts, it was just and convenient to grant the claimant service user declaratory relief.
I served 17 years in jail for a horrific rape I didn t commit - and now the DNA evidence proves it
Andrew Malkinson, 55, has always insisted that GMP got the wrong man
Updated
Andy Malkinson could have served less than half the 17 years he was in prison - but he refused to admit the offence (Image: APPEAL.ORG.UK)
A man who served 17 years in jail for a horrific rape says he is innocent - and that he now has the DNA evidence to prove it.
Andrew Malkinson was 37 when he was found guilty of carrying out a violent sex attack on a mum-of-two by the M61 motorway in Little Hulton, Salford.