{"id":7811,"date":"2026-07-11T17:35:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T17:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/07\/11\/uk-police-free-suspect-in-ex-mp-ann-widdecombe-murder-investigation\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T17:35:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T17:35:24","slug":"uk-police-free-suspect-in-ex-mp-ann-widdecombe-murder-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/07\/11\/uk-police-free-suspect-in-ex-mp-ann-widdecombe-murder-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"UK police free suspect in ex-MP Ann Widdecombe murder investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>The former government minister is believed to have been attacked on Wednesday, a full day before her body was discovered.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>A man who was arrested on suspicion of murdering former British government minister <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/10\/uk-police-arrest-man-suspected-of-murdering-former-mp-ann-widdecombe\">Ann Widdecombe<\/a> has been released and is no longer part of the investigation, police said.<\/p>\n<p>This comes as detectives revealed the killing took place a day before Widdecombe\u2019s body was found at her home in rural southwest England on Thursday.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 4 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 4<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/10\/police-probe-donations-to-britains-far-right-reform-party\">Police probe donations to Britain\u2019s far-right Reform party<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 2 of 4<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/features\/2026\/7\/10\/andy-burnham-apology-for-labour-stance-on-gaza-is-uks-position-shifting\">Andy Burnham apology for Labour stance on Gaza: Is UK\u2019s position shifting?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 4<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/10\/uk-police-arrest-man-suspected-of-murdering-former-mp-ann-widdecombe\">UK police arrest man suspected of murdering former MP Ann Widdecombe<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 4 of 4<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/7\/3\/could-far-right-reform-really-in-a-uks-general-election-now\">Could far-right Reform really win a UK general election now?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>Devon and Cornwall Police said a 26-year-old white British national was arrested in Newton Abbot, about 14.5 kilometres (nine miles) from Widdecombe\u2019s home, on Friday, before being freed on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Officers now believe the 78-year-old was attacked on Wednesday around 11:30 GMT, a day before ambulance workers called police to her home, where she was found dead with serious injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Police said they had found no evidence the killing was \u201cterrorism\u201d-related or politically motivated.<\/p>\n<p>They also said the suspect was believed to be a white male and that there was no wider risk to the public.<\/p>\n<p>Widdecombe was known for her socially conservative views, first as \u2060a junior minister in Conservative Prime Minister John Major\u2019s 1992-1997 government and latterly as an immigration spokesperson for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/6\/uks-farages-gold-deal-tests-his-populist-brand-as-restore-britain-rises\">Nigel Farage\u2019s far-right populist Reform UK<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>She converted to Catholicism partly in protest at the Church of England\u2019s ordination of women as priests and was opposed to abortion and to equalising \u2060the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual relationships.<\/p>\n<p>She also defended a policy of shackling pregnant prisoners during childbirth to prevent their escape and viewed single mothers as poor role \u2060models, but was unusual among Conservative lawmakers in opposing the hunting of \u2060foxes with hounds.<\/p>\n<p>News of her death led to tributes on Friday from across the political spectrum in the UK, including from Prime Minister Keir Starmer and from Farage, who described her as \u201can extraordinary woman\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe stood up and fought for what she believed in \u2013 a devout Christian and somebody with strong, socially \u200cconservative views,\u201d Farage said in a video clip posted on his X account.<\/p>\n<p>Two serving British members of parliament have been murdered in the last decade.<\/p>\n<p>The Labour lawmaker Jo Cox was shot and stabbed by a Nazi-obsessed loner during the Brexit \u200ccampaign in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The Conservative lawmaker David Amess was stabbed to death in 2021 by a man inspired by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/features\/longform\/2025\/5\/19\/a-fathers-fight-to-find-out-what-happened-to-his-son-who-joined-isis\">ISIL (ISIS) group<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former government minister is believed to have been attacked on Wednesday, a full day before her body was discovered. A man who was arrested on suspicion of murdering former British government minister Ann Widdecombe has been released and is no longer part of the investigation, police said. This comes as detectives revealed the killing &#8230; <a title=\"UK police free suspect in ex-MP Ann Widdecombe murder investigation\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/07\/11\/uk-police-free-suspect-in-ex-mp-ann-widdecombe-murder-investigation\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about UK police free suspect in ex-MP Ann Widdecombe murder investigation\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}