WIRRAL West MP Stephen Hesford is heading for a High Court showdown with a national newspaper over a story which he claims wrongly labelled him a sex pest.

Mr Hesford, 53, who recently announced that he plans to step down at the next election, claims a report of employment tribunal proceedings in Liverpool brought against him by his former press officer Jacqueline Snell was defamatory.

In a writ, issued at London's High Court and just made publicly available, the MP is seeking libel damages of up to £100,000. The writ says the Daily Express story, headed “MP who took a moral stance ‘was a sex pest’”, claimed there were reasonable grounds to suspect he had been involved in sexually harassing Jacqueline Snell.

The writ says that the story also claimed he was a hypocrite, whose resignation as Baroness Scotland’s Parliamentary aide had been exposed as a sham.

Father of two Mr Hesford had worked as a criminal law barrister until he was elected to Parliament in 1997, winning the seat from the Conservatives.

He said the story seriously damaged his reputation and caused him great personal embarrassment and distress. He is also seeking aggravated damages, saying that Express Newspapers ran the story without even trying to check the facts with him, or giving him any chance to comment.

The writ says that, if the paper had checked, Mr Hesford would have been able to explain that Ms Snell had not alleged that he had sexually harassed her during the court case, he says.

It says that Express Newspapers has failed to apologise or withdraw the allegations, and he fears the paper might repeat the claims unless restrained by injunction, he claims.