{"id":686558,"date":"2026-07-11T20:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/686558\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T20:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:40:11","slug":"haytor-vale-the-village-at-the-heart-of-ann-widdecombe-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/686558\/","title":{"rendered":"Haytor Vale: The village at the heart of Ann Widdecombe tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A police cordon remains in place at Widdecombe&#8217;s Rest &#8211; the name Ann Widdecombe gave to her Dartmoor home as a symbol of her retirement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That name has now taken on a new, and tragic, significance. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The residents of the tiny village of Haytor Vale &#8211; where neighbours are accustomed to feeling so safe they can leave their doors unlocked &#8211; are a community in shock.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Home to fewer than 200 people and nestled on the edge of Dartmoor, this peaceful valley is reeling with the knowledge that police suspect foul play in the death of the former government minister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Widdecombe was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cgjx912wxw3o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">found dead on Thursday morning<\/a>. As a police investigation and manhunt continues &#8211; and amid the tributes and grief &#8211; there is also whispered concern that a perpetrator could still be at large. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It shouldn&#8217;t have happened, it&#8217;s horrific,&#8221; said one neighbour. &#8220;It&#8217;s very, very safe around here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Another said: &#8220;It&#8217;s unbelievable someone could do something like that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Meanwhile, the walkers, families and nature lovers who usually populate the village during the summer months have been replaced by police, forensics officers and journalists. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A police cordon remains in place at Widdecombe&#8217;s Rest &#8211; the name Ann Widdecombe gave to her Dartmoor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-686558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}