Natalie Elphicke says she always intended to leave her cheating husband

The wife of Charlie Elphicke, the former Tory MP facing jail after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two women, has said she always intended to leave him but feared he might harm himself if she did so during the trial.

Natalie Elphicke, 49, who took over as Dover and Deal MP, when her husband was forced to stand down following his arrest, waited until the verdicts were handed down at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday before taking to Twitter to announce she was divorcing him.

Just 33 minutes after the jury convicted him of groping two women his wife wrote on social media: “Today’s verdict is one that brings profound sorrow. It ends my 25 year marriage to the only man I have ever loved.”

Mrs Elphicke explained: "We had been together a really long time but I had already formed the view before the trial had started that our marriage was unlikely to be able to survive the impact of such an ordeal over three years.”

But she said when the allegations had first surfaced, Elphicke had struggled to cope and she had always feared how he would react if she walked away.

She told the Sun on Sunday: "As early as 2017 when he was first suspended by the party he just fell apart. I would have to sit with him every hour, day and night, never leaving him because I was afraid of what he might do.

"In the beginning I urged him then to stand up and put himself back together and initially to carry on as an MP. So when it came to the trial, I felt I couldn't just walk away."

The trial heard humiliating evidence describing how in the first attack in 2007, Elphicke had chanted “I’m a naughty Tory”, as he chased the victim around his kitchen while his wife was away on business.

The woman had likened his behaviour to someone in a Benny Hill sketch, but said it had left her deeply traumatised.

Nine years later, Elphicke groped a parliamentary worker after becoming besotted by her.

Elphicke pestered her for sex in 2016 and when she rejected his advances he told her: "Oh, I'm naughty sometimes, aren't I? I can be so badly behaved but I can't help it.”

In 2018 Elphicke was forced to admit an affair with a third woman, who was not a complainant in the trial.

But his wife, a qualified lawyer and mother of two, said she only became aware of the full extent of his deceit when she began reading through the court documents in lockdown ahead of the trial.

He is due to be sentenced on September 15 at Southwark Crown Court and the judge has warned him that all options, including an immediate custodial sentence, are on the table.