Ed Davey’s wife ‘sat on the toilet and prayed when constituent tried to enter home’

Sir Ed Davey’s wife told a court today how she and her son’s carers encountered her alleged stalker outside her south London home.

Lady Emily Davey recalled how she ‘sat on the loo and started praying’ while Inigo Rowland, 58, one of her husband’s constituents, was yelling outside.

Rowland has been charged with stalking Lady Davey by turning up at their address more than once between June 1 and October 1 this year.

Rowland, a Lib Dem party member at the time, is further charged with harassing Lady Davey without violence between June 1 and October 6.

The court heard he repeatedly asked her to speak to Sir Ed, the Kingston and Surbiton MP.

The Liberal Democrat leader watched from the public gallery on Tuesday as his wife gave evidence from behind a screen that shielded her from the defendant’s view.

The court heard the couple’s son, who has severe disabilities, was 17 years old and their daughter was 11 at the time of the alleged offences.

Both children lived at the house, and Davey’s son, John, had two carers.

Lady Davey described meeting ‘eccentric people’ through her work, but later said the encounters with Rowland were ‘entirely different’.

‘When someone comes to your home and decides to start at your home, it’s a very different story, and when they try to get into your home, it’s very different,’ she said.

‘Those carers and my children didn’t sign up for a career in politics, and they don’t deserve this. I will help people any time, but not there.’

In September, Rowland walked through their outside door and into the porch, Lady Davey said.

He had allegedly approached her on previous occasions, and she recognised his voice when she heard him ‘shouting’ at her son’s carers in the driveway.

She said she was inside the property at the time, telling the court: ‘They were trying to stop this gentleman from coming in. There were raised voices and – it sounds awful – and I started praying.

‘I sat on the loo and started praying. What sort of person am I? Who sits on the loo praying, I was praying to god to get him to go.’

Lady Davey said she did have panic alarms, but she feared for her son John, who is ‘vulnerable’ and her young daughter.

Rowland was outside her open door when she ‘barged’ past, she told the court, and he kept asking Lady Davey to ‘ring someone’ for him.

That summer, he had attended the same property and was ‘talking at’ her, asking to speak to Sir Ed, the court heard.

Lady Davey said: ‘The problem is that I can’t – because of my husband’s position, and because of my position, and because I’m too polite, I don’t swear – I can’t just tell him to get lost.’

‘I remember afterwards my daughter saying, ‘Why is that man asking those questions?”

Lady Davey, who held Kingston council’s portfolio for housing, said she first met Rowland at Surbiton library on February 6, 2024, during one of several public meetings for tenants to speak about new service charges.

Rowland was the only person to attend the meeting and, instead of asking about the charge, complained about her husband, she said.

She told the court: ‘There were a lot of complaints about my husband, which I had nothing to do with, and nothing to do with me. I tried to explain to him that I only cover housing.

‘He accompanied me out of the library then, going down the slope to the pavement. I was thinking how long this man is going to stay here, going on about something that I had told him repeatedly, I cannot cover – I do not do this area, you will have to speak to my husband.’

He repeatedly complained about his toilet being installed 5mm out of place, Lady Davey said, adding that he is ‘a very determined gentleman, if he’s got an obsession he will go with it’.

Rowland, who wore a grey knitted jumper over a polo shirt, previously admitted possession of a flick knife in the Borough of Kingston on October 6.

The trial continues.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.