A LABOUR MP has said she is “baffled” by calls for an investigation into claims Natalie Elphicke attempted to lobby ministers over her then-husband’s sexual assault case.

Shadow schools minister Catherine McKinnell squirmed as she was interviewed about explosive claims the Tory defector asked Robert Buckland, the then justice secretary, to help move the date of her husband’s sexual assault trial.

Asked by Kay Burley on Sky News whether there should be an investigation into the claims, McKinnell said: “I’m really baffled by this because this happened four years ago and he has sat on these concerns that he says are very serious to a newspaper and has not done anything about it for four years so I’m as baffled as anybody else by these assertions.

“Obviously Natalie says they’re not true, it’s not her recollection of the meeting and so, you know, she says it’s nonsense and I just can’t quite understand why if something is this important and as serious as he’s alleging why it wasn’t addressed at the time, that’s very concerning to me so I think that’s something that probably does need to be looked into.”

Buckland told the Sunday Times that Elphicke, who defected to Labour last week, wanted her husband’s trial moved to avoid publicity.

He said: “She was told in no uncertain terms that it would have been completely inappropriate to speak to the judge about the trial at all.”

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Speaking on Times Radio on Monday morning, Elphicke said: “Natalie disputes the account of the claim and what conversations were had prior to joining the party in relation to her past events.”

Asked whether Labour would investigate the claims, McKinnell said: “Not that I’m aware or I’ve been informed of. She disputes the account, an account in a newspaper. There hasn’t actually been a complaint made as far as I’m aware, but obviously if there is that will be looked at.”

Charlie Elphicke's trial was due to be one of the first cases after Covid restrictions were lifted in courts which, potentially, could have meant a greater focus on the case, the BBC reported.

He was jailed in 2020 at Southwark Crown Court for two years for sexually assaulting two women.

Natalie Elphicke replaced her ex-husband as MP for Dover after he was charged, and announced that their marriage was ending after he was convicted.

She was suspended from the Commons for one day after she and four other Conservative MPs had attempted to influence legal proceedings by writing to senior members to raise concerns about a more junior judge who was considering publishing character references provided for Elphicke's husband.

READ MORE: New Labour MP ‘lobbied justice secretary to interfere in husband’s sex offence trial’

And she apologised last week after an interview re-emerged in which she defended her ex-husband as an “easy target” for what she said were false allegations because he was “attractive”.