Conservative MP Patrick Spencer has been charged with two counts of sexual assault allegedly carried out at central London’s Groucho club.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Tuesday that Spencer, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, had been charged following two alleged incidents at the famous private members club in August 2023.
Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS special crime and counter-terrorism division, said the allegations involved two separate women.
Spencer, 37, will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on June 16.
A Conservative Party spokesman said he had been suspended from the party and had the whip withdrawn “with immediate effect.”
The spokesman said: “The Conservative Party believes in integrity and high standards. We have taken immediate action.”
It is understood that the Conservative chief whip asked Spencer not to attend the parliamentary estate while inquiries were ongoing.
Under changes approved by the Commons last year, MPs face being barred from attending Parliament if they are arrested for serious sexual or violent offences.
A risk assessment panel appointed by Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle considers cases and can decide on a range of measures including exclusion from the parliamentary estate and a ban on Commons-funded travel, although its conclusions are kept confidential.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said, “On March 13 2025, a man attended a voluntary interview at a London police station.”
Ferguson added: “The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are now active and that he has the right to a fair trial.
“It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary, or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”
Spencer was first elected to Parliament last year with a majority of 4,290.
Prior to entering Parliament, he worked in finance for private equity firm IPGL, a company chaired by his father, former Conservative Party treasurer Lord Michael Spencer.
He later took a job at the Centre for Social Justice think thank and then became a senior adviser at the Department for Education.
He made his maiden speech in the Commons in July last year during a debate on the MPs’ code of conduct relating to second jobs, during which he said the “most important thing to the people across my constituency” was “restoring a sense of moral probity and public spiritedness to our political system.”
