FORMER Tory MP Charlie Elphicke has lost a Court of Appeal challenge against his two-year jail term for assaulting two women nearly a decade apart.

The disgraced 49-year-old was jailed for two years in September last year after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assault following a month-long trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Lawyers representing the former Conservative MP for Dover argued at a hearing in London yesterday that his sentence was too long and should have been suspended. But, rejecting his appeal bid, Lady Justice Carr said the Crown Court judge was entitled to impose the sentence she did.

The judge, sitting with Justice William Davis and Justice Calver, said: “The appellant was someone prepared to exploit his position of power and trust in order to pursue his sexual desires, as opposed to being sexually clumsy and unable to read social signals, as suggested (on his behalf).”

She said he had used his “success and respectability as cover”, adding: “He used his power to create conditions in which he believed that he could act on his sexual desires without fear of consequence.”

The judge also said Elphicke “took advantage of his apparently respectable position and the reasonable expectation of (his victims) that he would not seek to make unwanted sexual advances to them”. She said there was “no basis” to interfere with the Crown Court judge’s conclusion that a suspended sentence was not an option.