Ed Davey was advised to meet Post Office campaigner Alan Bates to avoid bad publicity

In 2010, as the postal minister, Sir Ed Davey was advised to meet with Alan Bates, a Post Office campaigner, to prevent negative media attention stemming from the Horizon IT scandal.

Despite initially declining the meeting, Davey, now the leader of the Liberal Democrats, did so five months later and has since expressed regret for not meeting sooner.

The advice for Davey to meet with Bates was aimed at managing public perception, as noted in documents released under Freedom of Information laws. These documents also included strategies for dealing with potential pitfalls during the discussion.

Davey, who has dismissed claims that he met Bates due to concerns about bad publicity, insists he convened to hear Bates's second appeal. He has acknowledged Bates's concerns about the Horizon system and alleges that the Post Office misled him about the system's reliability.

As a minister from May 2010 to February 2012, Davey was responsible for overseeing the Post Office, which was government-owned but operated at arm's length.

Bates, a former sub-postmaster who founded the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, initially sought a meeting with Davey in May 2010 but was denied on the basis that the issues were operational. The meeting was later granted in the face of potential media coverage.

With the general election approaching, Davey has no intention of resigning as Lib Dem leader, confident in the party's electoral prospects.

The broader scandal involves hundreds of sub-postmasters who were wrongfully prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 due to faults in the Horizon system.

The business department has commended Bates for his campaign and is focused on expediting compensation for those wrongfully convicted, with legislation in progress to reverse the convictions.