A special tribute event will honor Ann Widdecombe, the former British lawmaker and longtime defender of unborn children who was murdered at her Devon home this summer.
The gathering is scheduled for November 28 at the Assembly Rooms in Torquay Town Hall as part of the Torbay Literary Festival’s Christmas Books Weekend.
Television presenter Jeremy Vine and writer Iain Dale will join festival director Ben Tisdall to share memories of Widdecombe, who had been scheduled to appear at the festival in August. Other authors set to take part include Lady Anne Glenconner, Caroline Quentin, Kathy Lette, Debbie McGee and Ruby Wax.
Tisdall said organizers were “deeply shocked when we heard the news about Ann” and that the festival “became something of a focal point for people wanting to express their grief, but also their admiration for this unique woman.”
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He added: “I did not necessarily agree with all her views, but you could not help admire her strength of character, and also the joy she brought so many people in ordinary interactions within our community. We therefore wanted to do something to recognize what she meant to the people of Devon.”
Widdecombe, 78, was found dead July 9 at her bungalow in Haytor on Dartmoor after suffering severe head injuries from the attack. Prosecutors say she was struck 21 times on the head with a hammer on July 8 while eating lunch, in an attack captured on security cameras.
Left-wing activist Joshua Kerry, 28, of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, was charged with her murder on July 20 and remanded in custody. A provisional trial date has been set for June 2027. Counter-terrorism police have said they continue to investigate any possible political motivation.
Widdecombe converted to Catholicism in 1993 and became one of Britain’s most consistent champions of the sanctity of human life. A longtime patron of Right to Life UK and a senior figure in the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, she argued in Parliament as early as 1990 that abortion should not be treated as a legitimate medical procedure and that protections for the unborn should not be eroded.
In 2008 she supported amendments to lower the abortion time limit under key provisions of the Abortion Act to 12 weeks. She also opposed assisted suicide bills in 1997, 2000 and 2004 and continued speaking against measures that threaten the vulnerable at the beginning and end of life.
Pro-life organizations have called her a “heroine of the pro-life cause” whose voting record and public witness set an example for politicians willing to defend the right to life.
Chris Whitehouse, a trustee of Right to Life UK, said: “For 40 years, Ann was to me a personal and family friend, a political mentor and a remarkable heroine of the pro-life cause. … She was unflinching in her politics, constant in her friendships and steadfast in her defense of the principle of the right to life, both for the unborn and for those approaching the end of their lives.”
First elected as a Conservative MP in 1987, Widdecombe served as prisons minister in the 1990s, later became a Brexit Party MEP and at the time of her death was a Reform UK spokeswoman on immigration and justice.
She regularly worshiped at Buckfast Abbey, which described her as “a woman of profound faith, a faith which found expression in the public forum of politics” who “was unafraid to express her unwavering convictions, formed through her Roman Catholic faith.”
Her family has said a public memorial would follow later in the year after a private requiem Mass. The November tribute in Torquay is among the events now taking shape to remember the murdered pro-life lawmaker.
