{"id":691064,"date":"2026-07-14T12:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/691064\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T12:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:02:09","slug":"police-continue-to-question-murder-suspect-over-ann-widdecombes-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/691064\/","title":{"rendered":"Police continue to question murder suspect over Ann Widdecombe&#8217;s killing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Police are continuing to question the suspect held on suspicion of the murder of politician Ann Widdecombe for a third day. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A white British man, 28, from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, was originally arrested on suspicion of murder on Saturday, before being re-arrested on Monday on suspicion of commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Widdecombe, 78, a former Conservative minister turned Reform UK spokeswoman, was found dead at her home in Devon on Thursday, having sustained serious injuries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">From the time of his arrest for murder on Saturday, police would have had 96 hours to charge the suspect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However someone arrested under the Terrorism Act can be held for up to two weeks without charge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Monday, it was confirmed that Counter Terrorism Policing was leading the investigation into Widdecombe&#8217;s death, after Devon and Cornwall Police initially said there was &#8220;nothing to suggest&#8221; the murder had been politically motivated. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE) said it had taken over the investigation after new information had &#8220;come\u202fto\u202flight&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">National Counter Terrorism Policing head Laurence Taylor said the new arrest built on &#8220;progress made by our colleagues in Devon and Cornwall Police&#8221;, and that they were working to establish &#8220;the motivation for this attack&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Our priority is progressing this investigation quickly, with all the capabilities we have available to us. If anyone has any information, please share it with the police,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The announcement comes after the suspect was seen in CCTV footage appearing to get into a car in Yorkshire just before 08:00 BST on Wednesday morning, hours before the former Conservative minister is thought to have been attacked in her home in Devon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Devon and Cornwall Police said they believed Widdecombe had been attacked on Wednesday at about 12:30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police are continuing to question the suspect held on suspicion of the murder of politician Ann Widdecombe for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-691064","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\/691064","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=691064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}