A woman who spent more than three decades working for the Post Office is planning to stand against Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey – a former postal affairs minister – at the next general election.
Yvonne Tracey, who said ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office had made her “very sad” and “very angry”, lives in Sir Ed’s constituency of Kingston and Surbiton in southwest London.
The 68-year-old grandmother said she cannot allow him to “stand again unchallenged”.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were wrongly held responsible for accounting errors created by faulty software.
Those affected by the Horizon IT scandal are “still not hearing the truth”, Ms Tracey told Sky News.
They “still haven’t got justice” and “haven’t got answers”, she said. “Some of them haven’t had their names cleared. I just felt I had to do something to help them.”
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Sir Ed, who was postal minister between 2010 and 2012 during the coalition government, 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”.
According to Ms Tracey, 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.
She said: “He tried three times to get in touch with Sir Ed and every time he was turned away, refused or ignored.”
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.
Asked if the Post Office scandal…
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2024-01-13 16:51:00
Sky News is a British 24-hour information television channel, the first in Europe of its kind, launched on February 5, 1989 by the British Sky Broadcasting Company.