Slain British Politician Was Hit 21 Times With a Hammer, Prosecutors Say

Ann Widdecombe, the right-wing British politician whose killing this month sent shock waves through the country’s political establishment, was struck 21 times on the head with a hammer during the fatal lunchtime attack, prosecutors said in a London court on Tuesday.

The suspect, Joshua Kerry, 28, made a brief appearance at Westminster magistrates court, confirming his name and address in the city of Rotherham in the north of England. At a second hearing later Tuesday at London’s Central Criminal Court, he was ordered to be held until the next hearing on October 9.

Ms. Widdecombe was sitting at a table at her home in the village of Haytor in southwest England on July 8, eating lunch, when a man entered her home and asked her, “Don’t suppose you have bank cards and ID?,” according to images from a security camera recovered by police who investigated the crime scene, prosecutors said. They did not say whether or how she responded.

The man, wearing black gloves, then struck Ms. Widdecombe 21 times with the hammer before tipping her out of her chair onto the floor, taking her wallet and leaving, all within around two minutes, a prosecutor, Kashif Malik, said. He did not say anything about a potential motive.

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Ms. Widdecombe, who was 78, was a British lawmaker from 1987 to 2010. She served as a minister in the government of Prime Minister John Major in the 1990s.

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After Britons voted in 2016 to leave the European Union, she became a staunch supporter of Brexit and was a senior figure within Reform U.K., the right-wing populist party led by the pro-Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage.

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