The Anne Widdecombe investigation has been embarrassing for the police

The chilling murder of Ann Widdecombe has stunned the country. The longtime Conservative MP and Reform immigration spokeswoman was found at her remote home in Dartmoor, Devon, with severe head injuries last Thursday. The suspected attack is believed to have taken place on Wednesday.

Naturally, Widdecombe’s death has raised questions about the safety of current and former MPs. In the past decade, Labour MP Jo Cox and Conservative MP Sir David Amess have been murdered. There was also an attack on Labour MP Stephen Timms, thankfully not fatal, in 2010.

Threats against politicians have increased significantly in recent years, owing to the unholy alliance of technology and political polarisation. A review of MPs’ security is plainly necessary. Reform UK, in particular, has criticised the lack of support for its MPs. Yet the distress caused by Widdecombe’s murder has been heightened by a lack of clear information from officials – most notably the police – and a shifting account of Widdecombe’s death.

When, on the morning of 10 July, the public woke to the news that Widdecombe was dead, there was no suggestion of foul play. By Friday afternoon, however, reports began to circulate that she had been murdered. Then came a press conference from Devon and Cornwall police – delayed by over an hour into Friday evening – in which an officer stated that a 26-year-old man had been arrested and that there was no evidence her killing was ‘politically motivated’.

All of that has since turned out to be wrong. A day later, the ‘suspect’ was released without charge. Since then, a 28-year-old man has been arrested. He was reported to have driven nearly 300 miles from his home in Rotherham to Widdecombe’s Dartmoor home on the day of her death. Counter-terror police have taken over the investigation.

Once again, the behaviour of the police has been both unprofessional and dishonest. No sooner had her death been confirmed than the public were told not to ‘speculate’ – as if they had no right to wonder why a well-known conservative public figure had been found with fatal head injuries in her own home.

If the police didn’t know what happened or why, they should have plainly said so. This would have been no admission of failure – they could have said that they were investigating potential motives and would update the public in due course. To find out what happened and why is precisely what detectives are for.

Instead, there seems to have been an urge to keep the ill-informed masses at bay, lest they take to the streets. Clearly, the police had at the back of their minds the riots provoked by the 2024 Southport murders – which, incidentally, were fuelled by the vacuum of information left by the authorities. It was proof that caution can, and does, become self-defeating. The public, naturally, feel as though they are not getting the full picture.

But making premature assertions about a case is no better. The government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, said Devon and Cornwall Police appeared to have broken a ‘golden rule’ by commenting too firmly on a live investigation before any facts were settled. He is quite right.

This pattern of police behaviour will have profound consequences. Once public trust is squandered, every subsequent police statement becomes harder to believe, every appeal for calm less persuasive and every online rumour more potent. In trying to prevent disorder by withholding information, the police have risked producing the very conditions in which disorder thrives – suspicion, grievance and the belief that the public is being managed rather than informed. That distrust is already visible in the reaction to Widdecombe’s death.

In many circles, even previously ‘polite’ ones, there is now open suspicion of the police, and more than a degree of hostility. It is an institution seen as the paramilitary wing of the progressive intelligentsia. This should come as no surprise when shadowy units within the Home Office are ready to pump us full of ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’-style propaganda. Information is being withheld and the investigatory waters muddied because of the authorities’ contemptuous view of the general public.

This needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency, before trust – and, thereby, law and order itself – breaks down completely.

Paul Birch is a former police officer and counter-terrorism specialist. You can read his Substack here.