Key events
As we mentioned in the opening post, Widdecombe, who appeared on TalkTV on Wednesday, lived in Haytor Vale, a village within the Dartmoor national park, in a 1970s bungalow named Widdecombe’s Rest.
A plaque with the name of the property was positioned at the end of her drive.
Widdecombe was due to be a guest on Channel 5’s Matt Allwright show on Wednesday afternoon, but did not appear, as first reported by ITV News.
She had exchanged messages with a researcher from the show, but did not respond when they tried to contact her to join a Zoom call from home.
Calls and texts sent after the programme aired remained unanswered, ITV News said, and the Channel 5 show’s team followed up with her agent later on Wednesday and on Thursday.
Man arrested on suspicion of Ann Widdecombe’s murder is released
A 26-year-old man arrested on suspicion of murdering the former MP Ann Widdecombe has been released from custody and is no longer part of the investigation, Devon and Cornwall police said early on Saturday.
In a statement, the force’s assistant chief constable, Matt Longman, said: “Our priority remains identifying those responsible and ensuring that all available evidence is thoroughly examined.
“Detectives continue to carry out numerous inquiries as part of the ongoing investigation and we remain committed to establishing the full circumstances surrounding the incident.”
He said the investigation was “moving at a significant pace”. Police previously said there were no indications it was a “politically motivated crime” and have confirmed the incident was not being treated as terror-related.
On Friday, police said they were seeking a white male in connection with the death and later confirmed a 26-year-old white British national had been arrested at an address in Newton Abbot, less than 10 miles from Widdecombe’s home in Haytor, Devon.
Widdecombe’s body was found with “serious injuries” by the ambulance service at her home at 11.40am on Thursday.
She was a Conservative MP from 1987 to 2010 for the Kent constituency of Maidstone. She became a member of the Brexit party in 2019 and served as an MEP, representing South West England, between 2019 and 2020. She was also a member of that party’s successor, Reform UK.
Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage said Widdecombe’s alleged murder showed that life for politicians in Britain had become even more dangerous. He said:
Our nation is a much, much poorer place without her. Reform UK is certainly a much worse place without her. I was expecting to see her in Clacton over the course of the next few days. Sadly, that is not going to happen.
Rest in peace, Ann. A remarkable, principled woman, and a truly dreadful way to die, and a terrible reflection on modern Britain.
And I do fear that for anybody in public life, or especially the political space, things have become even more dangerous.
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