Ed Davey facing general election challenge from former Post Office worker

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox

Get our free View from Westminster email

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey will be challenged in his constituency at the general election by a former Post Office worker who is demanding justice for all those affected by the Horizon scandal.

Yvonne Tracey, who spent three decades at the Post Office, said Sir Ed, who served as postal affairs minister from 2010 to 2012, can’t be allowed to stand again “unchallenged” in his southwest London seat of Kingston and Surbiton, where she lives.

Sir Davey, who has faced calls to resign over the hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses who were wrongly held responsible for accounting errors created by faulty software, earlier this week said he “deeply regretted” not getting to the bottom of the scandal but refused to apologise.

Conservative ministers have accused Mr Davey, who said he had been lied to repeatedly on an “industrial scale” by the Post Office, of not asking the right questions.

Ms Tracey, a 68-year-old grandmother, told Sky News those affected by the scandal are “still not hearing the truth”, adding that the recent ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which brought the affairs back into the public spotlight, made her “very sad” and “very angry”.

Sir Ed initially refused to meet sub-postmaster Alan Bates, whom the ITV drama is named after, saying in a short letter that it “wouldn’t serve any purpose”.

He met Mr Bates later and he was the first minister on public record to do so.

A sub-postmaster who ran a post office in Sir Ed’s constituency lost his home, his business and attempted to take his own life on more than one occasion after being caught up in the scandal, Ms Tracey, who waselected to Kingston Council in 2022 and represents the local residents’ group, said.

“He tried three times to get in touch with Sir Ed and every time he was turned away, refused or ignored,” she added.

The Liberal Democrats said the sub-postmaster lived outside Sir Ed’s constituency and parliamentary convention meant he was therefore unable to get involved in the case.

On Wednesday prime minister Rishi Sunak announced new legislation to exonerate wrongly convicted Post Office branch managers after one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.

The prime minister also said there would be a new upfront payment of £75,000 for some of those affected.

Mr Sunak said a new law would be introduced so people wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal are “swiftly exonerated and compensated’’.

He told the Commons: “This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history.

“People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own. The victims must get justice and compensation.”