{"id":57041,"date":"2026-07-20T18:25:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/man-28-charged-with-murder-of-ann-widdecombe\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T18:25:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:25:26","slug":"man-28-charged-with-murder-of-ann-widdecombe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/man-28-charged-with-murder-of-ann-widdecombe\/","title":{"rendered":"Man, 28, charged with murder of Ann Widdecombe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">A 28-year-old man named as Joshua Kerry has been charged with the murder of Ann Widdecombe,<\/b><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\"> <\/b><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">the Crown Prosecution Service has said.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kerry, from Rotherham in South Yorkshire, is set to appear at Westminster Magistrates&#8217; Court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Police enquiries into the defendant&#8217;s motives are ongoing, including a potential political or terrorist connection, the CPS said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Widdecombe, 78, a former Conservative minister and Reform UK spokeswoman, was found dead on Thursday 9 July at her home in Haytor, Devon, having sustained serious injuries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Frank Ferguson, Chief Crown Prosecutor of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: &#8220;We have decided to prosecute Joshua Kerry for murder following a police investigation into the death of Ann Widdecombe in Haytor, Dartmoor.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Our prosecutors have worked closely with the police to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring this case to court, and we will continue working with them as their investigation progresses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We remind all concerned that proceedings against the defendant are active and he has the right to a fair trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It is vital that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information which could in anyway prejudice these proceedings,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\">This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\">You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/10628994\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\">BBC News App<\/i><\/a><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\">. You can also follow <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BBCBreaking\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\">@BBCBreaking on X<\/i><span class=\"visually-hidden ssrcss-i2z2ig-VisuallyHidden e16en2lz0\">, <!-- -->external<\/span><\/a><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\"> to get the latest alerts.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cn4n2erympvo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 28-year-old man named as Joshua Kerry has been charged with the murder of Ann Widdecombe, the Crown Prosecution Service has said. Kerry, from Rotherham in South Yorkshire, is set to appear at Westminster Magistrates&#8217; Court on Tuesday. Police enquiries into the defendant&#8217;s motives are ongoing, including a potential political or terrorist connection, the CPS [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[2402,607,417,880,15914],"class_list":["post-57041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk","tag-ann","tag-charged","tag-man","tag-murder","tag-widdecombe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57043,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57041\/revisions\/57043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}