Mark Menzies: Here are all of the allegations against Tory MP accused of misusing party funds

MP Mark Menzies has lost the Conservative whip after the allegations became public

An MP has lost the Conservative whip while the party investigates claims he misused campaign funds.

Mark Menzies, the MP for Fylde, faces a series of allegations, which he denies. Here are all the allegations made against the MP, who has become the latest Tory to lose the whip over allegations of bad behaviour.

Locked in the flat

Tory MP Mark Menzies who is being investigated by the party following claims he misused campaign funds.

Firstly, Mr Menzies is accused of calling his 78-year-old former campaign manager in the early hours, saying he’d been locked by “bad people” in a flat who wanted £5,000 to release him.

Mr Mezies is reported to have asked her to transfer thousands of pounds from a bank account containing donation to his campaign, insisting it was “a matter of life and death”. He is then accused of asking for the money from her own savings, something she refused, leading to his constituency office manager stumping up the money from her Isa.

The next day, he is said to have told the 78-year-old he needed another £35,000 for medical bills. Upon being told there was no money in the campaign funds account, he allegedly replied “oh, we’ll raise some more”.

A source close to Menzies told The Times the MP had met a man on an online dating site, gone to the man’s flat, then a second address with someone else, where he was falsely accused of being sick and needing to pay to clean it up.

While his office manager has been paid back, this is said to have been with funds donated by local supporters to cover his campaign expenses. The money was in an account with the name “Flyde Westminster Group”, and was set up to allow supporters to donate to him.

Medical bills

However, this is allegedly not the first time campaign funds were used to cover Mr Menzies personal expenses.

Four years earlier, just before the pandemic, he is accused if asking his former campaign manager to send £3,000 from the campaign funds. He claimed to have urgent medical bills that he could not pay and promised to sell some shares to repay the money.

However, he is understood to never have paid the money back and instead asked for another £4,000.

The 2014 incident

Mr Menzies previously made headlines after being at the centre of a sex-for-money scandal. A Brazilian male prostitute, 19, told the Sunday Mirror the MP paid him for sex and asked him to purchase an illegal drug. It prompted the MP to resign as a ministerial aide, promising to set “the record straight in due course”.

The dog

Three years later, Mr Menzies was interviewed by police after being accused of deliberately getting an acquaintance’s dog drunk, and then fighting the friend after they challenged him on it. It was reported the dog needed emergency treatment for “intoxication” and “poisoning”.

Last Night of the Proms

More recently, Mr Menzies was accused of kicking chars and poking people in the front row at a Last Night of the Proms concert after realising his seats had not been reserved in the VIP section. A source close to the MP admitted he had drunk too much, but didn’t poke anyone deliberately, but may have done it by accident with a flag.