“At no time has any allegation of this nature been raised. In addition, I was present when Mr Elphicke was interviewed by the police and I can confirm that this is the case.] [[7] “Moreover, had a credible allegation of this nature been made against my client, it is inconceivable that the police would not have questioned him about it by now, over five months later.] [8] This weekend a leading QC said: “It is important for serious allegations against elected public officials to be dealt with in a swift and timely manner, not only for the sake of the alleged victims, but also for the suspect himself, and his constituents. [9] “One would expect the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to make charging decisions as quickly as possible. Justice delayed is justice denied.” [10] The woman first made her allegation to the Conservative Party in November 2017. [11] The Sunday Times has a signed statement from the alleged victim in which she claims that she was raped by the MP. “I was explicitly clear I did not want to have sex with him and he was aware of this,” she says. “I was visibly very upset at the time.” ..... [[12] Elphicke was suspended from the Conservative Party over unidentified “serious allegations” on November 3. On the day the Tory whip was withdrawn, Elphicke tweeted: “I am not aware of what the alleged claims are and deny any wrongdoing.”] [13] The Sunday Times was unable to identify the rape complainant to Elphicke, or to give details beyond the fact that the incident is claimed to have taken place between 2015 and 2017. .... [[14] Elphicke has previously said he is “co-operating fully” with the police in relation to the allegations they have put to him and told them that he “vigorously denies any wrongdoing”.] [15] The rape allegation is the most serious to emerge since a slew of sexual misconduct claims hit Westminster at the end of last year. [16] After the Sunday Times revealed last weekend that the MP had been questioned under caution over sexual offences a “friend” of Elphicke briefed another newspaper that the allegations related to “claims of low-level sexual harassment” that were “pretty minor in the scheme of things”. [17] The friend added that the claims were at a “Michael Fallon level” – a reference to the former defence secretary, who lost his cabinet job last year following claims that he had placed a hand on a journalist’s knee. [18] However, at least one of the allegations received by police is much more serious. [19] Earlier this year, Andrew wrote to the alleged victim regarding the complaint of “alleged inappropriate behaviour and non-consensual sex” against Elphicke that she had made to the Conservatives last year. [20] “I know this is currently part of an investigation,” he wrote. “However, I ... wanted to check that following the statements that you have made to the Met, that you have been able to access the health and wellbeing services that I was keen to arrange for you. If you have had any issues or feel you need any further support, please do not hesitate to contact me.” [[21] The Westminster sex scandal erupted last autumn after the anonymous online publication of a list of alleged sex pests in parliament. It has already claimed the scalps of Fallon and Damian Green, who was the de facto deputy prime minister.] [[22] The Tory Party suspended Elphicke four days after the list appeared. He was elected to the House of Commons in 2010. One alleged offence is said to have occurred when he worked as a government whip under the former prime minister, David Cameron.] [[23] Elphicke’s wife, Natalie, has fiercely defended him, writing in this newspaper in November that he was the victim of “kangaroo courts”
“At no time has any allegation of this nature been raised.” [8] Why not? Surely he should have been informed by now. The Metropolitan police won’t tell us one way or another whether they have questioned Elphicke about the rape allegation. After the long-running Leveson inquiry into the conduct of the press, police are terrified of giving any guidance to the media, on or off the record. [9] The woman alleging rape is as much in the dark as we are ... [Yet all this secrecy didn’t stop a “friend” of the MP giving a “pre-buttal” of the accusations to a rival newspaper (an incredibly frequent and brazen practice). No sooner had we, quite properly, given Elphicke the time to respond ahead of publication to claims a fortnight ago that he was being investigated for sexual offences against two former staff members than a sanitised version of our story mysteriously appeared in the Mail on Sunday. Coincidence? You decide. .... [[10] The “friend” of Elphicke told the tabloid that he believed the allegations amounted to no more than “low-level sexual harassment” which was “pretty minor in the scheme of things”
‘i) The governing principle is reasonableness. ii) The intention of the publisher is irrelevant. iii) The hypothetical reasonable reader is not naive but he is not unduly suspicious. He can read between the lines. He can read in an implication more readily than a lawyer and may indulge in a certain amount of loose thinking, but he must be treated as being a man who is not avid for scandal and someone who does not, and should not, select one bad meaning where other non-defamatory meanings are available. A reader who always adopts a bad meaning where a less serious or non-defamatory meaning is available is not reasonable; s/he is avid for scandal. But always to adopt the less derogatory meaning would also be unreasonable: it would be naive. iv) Over-elaborate analysis should be avoided and the court should certainly not take a too literal approach to the task. v) Consequently, a judge providing written reasons for conclusions on meaning should not fall into the trap of conducting too detailed an analysis of the various passages relied on by the respective parties. vi) Any meaning that emerges as the produce of some strained or forced, or utterly unreasonable interpretation should be rejected. vii) It follows that it is not enough to say that by some person or another the words might be understood in a defamatory sense. viii) The publication must be read as a whole and any ‘bane and antidote’ taken together. Sometimes the context will clothe the words in a more serious defamatory meaning (for example the classic “rogues gallery” case). In other cases, the context will weaken (even extinguish altogether) the defamatory meaning that the words would bear if they were read in isolation (e.g. bane and antidote cases). ix) In order to determine the natural and ordinary meaning of the statement of which the claimant complains, it is necessary to take into account the context in which it appeared and the mode of publication. x) No evidence, beyond publication complained of, is admissible in determining the natural and ordinary meaning. xi) The hypothetical reader is taken to be representative of those who would read the publication in question. The court can take judicial notice of facts which are common knowledge, but should beware of reliance on impressionistic assessments of the characteristics of a publication’s readership. xii) Judges should have regard to the impression the article has made upon them themselves in considering what impact it would have made on the hypothetical reasonable reader. xiii) In determining the single meaning, the court is free to choose the correct meaning; it is not bound by the meanings advanced by the parties (save that it cannot find a meaning that is more injurious than the claimant’s pleaded meaning).’