Armed police hammered on a door in a nondescript terraced house in Rotherham nearly 300 miles from the Dartmoor cottage where Ann Widdecombe was found dead. The 28-year-old suspect, described by neighbours as a loner since his father died last December, was arrested without struggle just before the England v Norway World Cup kick-off on Saturday night.
CCTV footage obtained by The Sun shows the man leaving his council house just before 8am on Wednesday, a wooden baton visible in his shorts pocket. He climbed into a rusty red hatchback — a car so rarely used that moss had grown on it — and allegedly drove 267 miles to Ms Widdecombe’s remote bungalow in Haytor, Devon.
“Ann Widdecombe murder suspect drove 267 miles from Rotherham to Dartmoor; arrested after CCTV breakthrough.”
‘It looked like a wooden stick or an iron bar, about a foot long, and it was pushing up underneath his T-shirt as he got into the car,’ one neighbour said. Another recalled: ‘He seemed calm and there was nothing to suggest anything unusual was happening.’
Police believe the former MP and Strictly star, 78, was attacked at around 12.30pm that day. She had been interviewed on TalkTV at 8am and was due on Channel 5’s Matt Allwright show at 1pm. She replied to a producer’s text at 12.19pm but failed to join a Zoom link sent at 12.48pm. Her body was found at 11.30pm on Thursday by a domestic assistant. Sources say she died from severe blunt trauma to the head. Police initially thought she had fallen and did not realise it was murder until a day later.
A Ring doorbell camera at Ms Widdecombe’s home captured a white British man and his car, giving police a key breakthrough. Counter-terror specialists helped trace the suspect to his Yorkshire home. On Saturday, officers in balaclavas stormed the terraced property. ‘We just heard a loud bang, like a window being put in,’ a neighbour said. ‘They put him in handcuffs in the front garden and led him out. There was no shouting. He appeared to be co-operating.’
The suspect was driven to Devon for questioning. Locals said he had become reclusive after his father’s death. ‘He was someone you’d have a conversation with but that changed after his dad died,’ said neighbour Rayed Astle, 26. Another resident, Courtney Foster, 25, added: ‘He was always in the house and I don't think he worked. Now and again you’d see the upstairs light on but that was it.’
A 26-year-old man arrested at an address in Newton Abbot on Friday has been released. Police have said they ‘are not looking for anyone else’ in connection with Ms Widdecombe’s death.
