A Tory MP is under investigation over allegations that he misused campaign funds and abused his position after making a late-night phone call saying he’d been locked up by “bad people” who were demanding thousands of pounds, The Times can reveal.
Mark Menzies, the Conservative MP for Fylde and a government trade envoy, rang an elderly local party volunteer at 3.15am in December saying he was locked in a flat and needed £5,000 as a matter of “life and death”. The sum, which rose to £6,500, was paid by his office manager from her personal bank account and subsequently reimbursed from campaign funds raised from donors.
Some £14,000 given by donors for use on Tory campaign activities had previously been transferred to Menzies’s personal bank
