Man Charged With Murder of Pro-Life Icon Ann Widdecombe... as Inquest Opens Into Her Death

Joshua Kerry, 28, of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, appeared Tuesday at Westminster Magistrates' Court charged with the murder of longtime pro-life advocate Ann Widdecombe, the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed.

Widdecombe, 78, a former Conservative member of Parliament who more recently served as a Reform UK spokeswoman, was found dead at her home in Haytor on Dartmoor, Devon, on July 9. The Crown Prosecution Service authorized the murder charge on July 20, after what Chief Crown Prosecutor Frank Ferguson of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division described as a review that found "sufficient evidence to bring this case to court." Kerry was remanded into custody. Police have said they are not seeking anyone else in connection with the killing, though counter-terrorism officers are leading the investigation and examining a possible political motive.

An inquest into Widdecombe's death opened the same day at Exeter Coroner's Court, where Senior Coroner Philip Spinney told the hearing that a post-mortem examination had taken place, but that "the precise medical cause of death has yet to be established." The coroner adjourned the inquest until the criminal case concludes.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood called the circumstances "extremely distressing," saying Widdecombe was a true servant of her constituents. Chris Whitehouse, a trustee of Right To Life UK and a longtime friend, remembered her as a remarkable heroine of the pro-life cause.

First elected to Parliament for Maidstone in 1987, Widdecombe served more than two decades in the Commons, including as a Home Office minister responsible for prisons, before later representing Reform UK. She was a patron of Right To Life UK for many years and, throughout her career, consistently voted for greater protections for the unborn and against the legalization of assisted suicide.

The Last Word

Ann Widdecombe spent 40 years telling Parliament an inconvenient truth: that both the unborn and the dying deserve protection, not abandonment. She never softened that message to make it popular, and she never stopped delivering it. Priests for Life joins Right To Life UK and her many friends across the pro-life movement in mourning her, and in praying that the court now hearing this case delivers the truth, and the justice, that her family and this cause deserve.

Related resources: Priests for Life on the life and legacy of Ann Widdecombe