Mark: On the 10th July, the story broke that former Conservative minister turned reform UK spokeswoman Anne Widicombe had died at the age of 78 in the quiet Devon village where she'd been living. As tributes flooded in the next day, an announcement that her death was being treated as murder was a shock to the nation. With speculation bubbling, for two days the police claimed the death did not seem to be politically motivated. after arresting and releasing a 26 year old man and then subsequently arresting a 28 year old man who remained in custody. Announcing they were not looking for anyone else in relation to her death, the story soon shifted in the next few days as counter terrorism police took over the case and announced it was a targeted attack. In a world more divided than ever, where political violence has become more commonplace, we ask, are our politicians safe? Are we? And what can we do to understand the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of

jeremy: Hello and welcome to Thirty Minute Crime. I'm Jeremy Vine.

Mark: I'm Mark Williams Thomas and we've decided to bring you a special edition of 30 minute crime to cover the case of Anne Whitcomb, a story that has attracted huge attention not just in this country but worldwide. Before we start I really want to understand Anne Whitcomb a bit more and Jeremy you knew Anne personally.

jeremy: Yeah, very much. And I feel this is a death in the family almost for for us at Channel Five. And in my professional life I I've I I realize I I was friends with Anne, but you don't always realise that until a terrible incident like this. I met her in the nineties. The Conservatives were in disarray under John Major, Tony Blair was on the rise. She wasn't very gossipy. Now, as a correspondent, you always wanted your your MPs to be gossipy. I think she was just a bit too Principle for that actually. So she wasn't the classic MP who wanted to say, John Majors had a dreadful day with a lot of glee. And I stayed in touch with her over the years, and she's of an age. And of course, the Tories then went into opposition, and Blair was on the rise. And dear old Anne then then stepped down and and then developed this incredible showbiz career. And we all enjoyed her, didn't we? On Strictly and you know, I'm a Celebrity and all that stuff. On Big Brother, wasn't it? Not I'm a Celebrity. And and then the way we both came back together and and got to know each other better, Mark, was that I I began my show on Channel Five in 2018, and it's a two-hour morning TV show which discusses current affairs, and we're looking for lively people, and Anne just absolutely fitted the bill. And I think I had her on more than a hundred times. I'm told I did. So and that's a two-hour stint. So she comes in the studio and she all she has to do is be Anne Whittakom and talk about the news. And W so we had all these crazy things we did. So she said she would never ever admit to knowing anything about modern culture. EastEnders, Coronation Street, Oasis. We said, Have you heard of Oasis? Of course I haven't. Would you like to listen to Oasis? All right then. And she'd put on this sort of panto shock, and then we put a bucket head on hat on her and headphones, and she listened to She's Electric by Oasis and declared it to be the worst music she'd ever heard. She we did something about leg waxing for men, and she was she agreed to. To wax my legs with some ridiculous sort of peelable fabric velcro horrible thing, and I screamed, you know, it was sh she very much had a sense of humour while at the same time being this quite scary battle axe. And the thing that was interesting about Anne. was that she was always nice to the people she didn't have to be nice to. I think that's a great test mark of generally people's humanity is how do you treat the people you don't have to be nice to. So she was politest to the junior researchers and runners on the show. Then you know this gets hard now because sh we then hear that she's just gone off the radar, then we hear she's dead and then we hear she's been murdered. And the tributes roll in

Mark: Yeah.

jeremy: And it I mean it it I'm buy I'm wearing this shirt for Anne, by the way, because she loved Devon. So one of the things I knew about Anne is she's got lots of greenery on it. She wasn't the classic she wasn't quite what you expect. She wasn't unkind. She loved animals and nature and green and being in Devon and Dartmoor and waving to her neighbours and all that stuff. And I when we heard That she died, we then began to get tributes on the show. And they began to say, so Richard Tice, for example, the deputy leader of reform, said, You know, Anne loved your show. She loved coming on. And she would come on once a fortnight, she'd come up on the train from Devon, she'd stay in the the the hotel she went, I think it was the RAC or the AA or whatever, and she would then come in and then she'd book all of her meetings. So With Richard Sai said, look, we should have a meeting, Anne. She said, Well, I've been with Jeremy next week. And I realized, without without a having been conscious of it during her life, that we were Friends, actually. I mean, I should I've had felt very tender towards her, but I never ever said that to her. She would have never said that to me. But she had a lovely twinkle, and I really regret that I didn't say, you know what, you're an absolutely amazing person. Just to add, clearly she had some problematic views. Who doesn't? Some of her views were very old testament. I don't really want to get into them here. I didn't really hear her come out with anything that was. outrageous on my show. She was just someone who probably her bark was worse than her bite, actually. But she had some Old Testament views, and one of the problems that's happened after her death is we've got people who think that's a license to abuse her while she's still You know, not even in the ground. I mean I think I find that a whole disgusting thing, but anyway. So I I've been reflecting that she was my friend, but I didn't really know it, and I feel a little bit guilty. I did say to her once, Mark, just in closing, in this this little tribute of mine here, I said to her once, Do you want to come out for lunch? And she said, I'd love to. I said, Well, 'cause I was at a restaurant, where they had it was a a steak restaurant and it said our steak is sustainable and then it said the the dessert is sustainable and I I just imagined you seeing that and being furious and she said, I'd love to go. So I I chose another colleague called Angela Epstein, who's a sort of on the right journalist, Daily Mail journalist, 'cause I knew they'd get on. We had this lovely lunch and sure enough the moment comes to order the dessert and she has a row with a waiter and she says, Well, what does this mean, sustainable dessert? And and I thought, just it's totally Anne, isn't it? Totally Anne. So she had a wonderful, complete personality. Yes, she had some views that a lot of people may not have liked or were old fashioned, so what? She's allowed to. She's allowed to. That's the whole point. She was completely true to herself. And well, we should we should get into what happened on that fateful day now.

Mark: Yeah, I I think, you know, I met her a couple of times in the various green rooms over the years. And I think one of the things about Anne Willicombe was that she, sadly nowadays, someone has an opposing view to you and rather than accept your view and go, well, that's your view, that's my view, we're not going to fall out over it. Lots of people end up falling out over those positions. you know, Anne voiced her view. And if it didn't, if you didn't agree with it. You'd still be in a position where you'd walk off afterwards and you'd both be friends and you'd chat and what are you up to today type of thing. So I didn't know her to any degree at all. I wouldn't say that I knew her, but that was the impression that I got from her. She had principles, her principles were her principles, not always agreed and perhaps a generation thing as well. But it is case that is...

jeremy: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Mark: It's captured the nation for many different reasons. this was a story, obviously, that broke last week. It started off on the Wednesday, Thursday when... the story built but Thursday really because that's when the nation knew that Anne Whittaker had died. And then by about lunchtime on Friday I was hearing that there was a likelihood that Anne Whittaker's death was actually not natural causes, it was actually being classified as murder and that's where it completely changed. Jeremy let's have a look at the timeline.

jeremy: Yeah, so it's it's really important to be specific, isn't it? We're talking about the eighth of July here, a Wednesday. Her last broadcast appearance was just after eight in the morning. She went on talk TV and defended Nigel Farage because of the scandal over the donations. Then, interestingly, she had contact with my office at Channel 5. They were booking her for that day's program, not with me, but with Matt Allwright. There was some conversation early in the morning. Then at 12:19, there was an exchange of messages. She was sent a briefing, and then there was a period leading up to the moment. Where she was due on the Zoom call. And at 1248, she wasn't on the call. And the, I mean, if wonderful researcher who we've got, you know, I mean, it was you can see the messages have been published. It was extremely polite to Anne, who she thought was maybe had forgotten or whatever, but there's nothing coming back. So she just says, Are you okay? Where are you? And so on. And nothing comes back. So yeah, but the.

Mark: I think she'd made a couple of calls as well, hadn't she, Jeremy? I think she'd made three calls.

jeremy: At that point, the police, well, later the police would say that they think at 12:30 she she was attacked. So sometime between 12:19 when she answered the researcher and 1248. So we then have an ongoing series of messages going up to quarter past one, where the researcher obviously thinks she's lost contact. We then have the following day and I believe it's the gardener who finds her at eleven forty. That's the ninth of July. You can imagine that person's terrible shock, 'cause she's been at home at that stage for twenty-four hours, lying dead. The following day on the tenth of July, now we're on the Friday when you began to hear something, her management released a statement confirming she's died, but saying no more than that. So we're all assuming natural causes. She wasn't young, she was seventy-eight. And then at 3 44 PM, that's quite soon after you'd heard. Devon and Cornwall police say it it's murder, it's a murder investigation. And very quickly they say the suspect they believe is a white male. We'll come back to that. At 4:13 that day, her management team say they're absolutely devastated because of the murder investigation. And then we have events moving quite quickly. The 26-year-old white man arrested for murder. Is going to be released. So they got the wrong guy, but they obviously had something to arrest that guy for. And there is a bit of a theory we could go into. The Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman crucially says he has no information at this time to believe that this is a politically motivated crime. The incident is not being treated as terrorism.

Mark: Let's just stop there a minute, Jeremy. Let's look at Friday. So Friday was a massive shift. We've moved from a position where Anne Widdecombe, a national figure, she was very, very well known. Her death is being treated as murder. Now that's a huge, huge situation in the story and of course incredibly difficult for her family and friends who are suddenly learning about this news. What was I thought very interesting from the press conference?

jeremy: the next day. Yeah, sure.

Mark: was not only, of course, their position, which continues to go on, that they didn't believe that there was anything to suggest it was politically motivated, but also crucially, they announced that it was a white male. Now, why did they do this? Because in recent times, the police have been criticized for not identifying the ethnicity of a suspect. And this is particularly relevant when we've talked about you know, black or Asian males have been arrested for offences in relation to terrorism. And in fact, following some criticism of the police forces failing to do that, the National Police Council have said that now when an individual is arrested in relation to a particularly sensitive area that's going to attract media attention, they will put out the ethnicity of the individual. So that's kind of come about in relation to recent terrorism incidents. But the position we went to bed with course on the Friday night was 26 year old male in custody not believed to be politically motivated crime and then Saturday morning we all woke up to the news and let's keep going with that timeline.

jeremy: Yeah. Yeah, so so i we then discover that he's been released from custody without charge. So they got the wrong person, that's the twenty six year old. They say a manhunt is underway and they often use this phrase, it is moving at pace. I mean, I don't know how many investigations moved not at pace, but th th forgive me for the little quibble there. The police force adds it's made an active decision not to release further information. They then Three hours later arrest the twenty eight year old white British male in South Yorkshire, and they say crucially we were supported by counterterrorism policing northeast and South Yorkshire police who carried out the arrest on behalf of Devon and Cornwall. So then on the twelfth of july the following day So we've gone nine, ten, eleven, twelve, or four days in now. Police say there's nothing again, there's nothing to suggest that Anne Whittacombe's death was politically motivated, and officers are not looking for anyone else in connection with it. And at this point, what you get is the r not rage, but there's an indignation on the right among reform people, particularly Nigel Farage, Zia Youssef, who say, wait, ever since the start we've said you don't park your car in the driveway if you're a burglar. Now there's so there's some talk that there's a car in the driveway and that's what led them to the wrong suspect and then the second suspect. So Farage had come down and said, this is clearly premeditated and and they keep saying it's not the police. And Farage, Mr. Farage then apparently then was told via Keir Starmer, again, don't worry, it's not political. And this is why it's really problematic for the police, because at the point where you go to this suspect, there's enough of a reason to bring in the anti-t anti-terror police. And essentially, Mark, I guess in that situation, for Devon and Cornwall, it's a nightmare because the whole t case is then taken away from them. Is that

Mark: Yeah, I mean, let's look at the weekend. obviously we now know on Friday that Anne's death is a murder investigation. And Nigel Farage, very outspoken individual and of course, leader of the Reform Party. What ends up happening is that he ends up speaking to the chief constable of Devlin Cornwall and also to the prime minister on a number of occasions over that weekend. And he is told very clearly that this is a burglary gone wrong. And he's been very clear and outspoken in regards to his response to it as well, a burglar doesn't park on a driveway. They park down the road and they have a getaway driver. Of course, what has assisted the police greatly is that there is some form of doorbell camera on Adam Whiddicam's front door, which is why they were able to very quickly come out with this indication that it's a single male that we're looking for. They obviously arrested the 26 year old, eliminated that person, but further inquiries led them then to the 28 year old man in Roderman that they subsequently arrested on that Saturday night in partnership with counterterrorism. Now, the reason, of course, counterterrorism was involved with this because of the potential political involvement of a politician of Amwidicum status to see whether, of course, there is a connection in regards to perhaps some extremism in regards to that. The element of saying to Nigel Farage that this is a a burglary gone wrong, one has to challenge the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police and say, why are you telling that to someone like Nigel Farage? You might as well have put it in the public domain. know, Nigel Farage isn't going to keep anything confident in regards to that. He'll say whatever he wants. so the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, I think, overstepped his mark in relation to that. And of course, the reason Keir Starmer told that to Nigel Farage was because the Chief Constable told the Prime Minister. So things point back to the Devon on Cornwall. We now, of course, know that the significant change was coming was that they were still saying this is not politically motivated at the weekend and into the early part of this week. But then it completely shifts, doesn't it? We then move to a position with the timeline when the head of anti-terrorism command makes a very significant statement.

jeremy: Mm. Yeah. Exactly so. So we we go into the situation where they take the case over effectively and we learn that this man, this suspect, may have had political material at his house. And you then start to think, as you go through it, why I I appreciate the police tell us not to speculate, but they seem to have gone into an assumption early on Alma again, I need your wisdom on this because I wonder whether Devon and Cornwall Police don't want to lose the case. So they're they have almost willful blindness about the fact this is cl the first thought has got to be it's terrorism, right? The first thought has got to be he's targeted a politician and he's he's hurt her because of who she is. It's not a burglary. That's that you that's if you know nothing more about the case, that's where you go. But do they say it's looks like a burglary gone wrong? Because then they can be the main investigators. And is that why they were reluctant to go the other route. That's I know that's crazy, but you know more about police politics than I do.

Mark: tell you what I think's happened here is I think that Devon Cornwall police, like so many other police forces, they are at times completely and utterly overwhelmed with the media response and they don't have necessarily the skills to understand a fast moving newsroom and how to be so careful with every single word that you mention. think the Chief Constable in terms of referring to it as a burglary gone wrong to Nigel Farage, he should never have said that. I think in terms of coming out and saying, you know, we've ruled out at this stage politically motivated was the wrong way to do it. What they should have said is every angle still remains open to us at this stage. We're trying to understand any potential motivation for this. And of course, we are keeping the political element open. They should never have closed it down. They did kind of keep it open, but not well enough. And I think their words could have been better chosen. They obviously involved counterterrorism command.

jeremy: Mm.

Mark: And as is with every any investigation, once they started to dig deeper into their suspect, of course, they started to identify other things. I think the other words that were very key to the police, which was we are not looking for anybody else. I understand why they said that, because they wanted to kind of give some confidence to the community, particularly the community around Hator to say, look, there isn't, we believe, an individual out there.

jeremy: Wow.

Mark: who is attacking people. But I think that was a very, very dangerous thing to say, because effectively what you're saying is we've got our man and that is it.

jeremy: I agree. I I wanted to say to ask you about that. I think that, you know, the police are clearly in a difficult position. I've got nothing against them. I've I've when I've had personal dealings with the police, they've been incredibly good and professional. But that said, I think that saying we are not looking for anyone else is a major jeopardy to when the thing comes to court. Because the the guys, the person's Barrister can say, the police basically told the public he's guilty. And the most famous example of this was the Yorkshire Ripper. When he was arrested in the eighties, the two arresting officers who found Peter Sutcliffe with a hammer, pretending to have a Wii by a wall and actually getting rid of the hammer, were given an award. in a public ceremony before the trial. And after that they said we must never do that again. And I do think it's very that phrase is very, very dangerous. We're not looking for anyone else. But I understand they have to reassure people. But I also think the main issue here, well two things. The thing about no one must speculate The whole of the internet is awash with speculation, and they in a way need to control that rather than try and just deny it's there. And the second thing is, I do think there's a problem for the police since Leverson. Now the big inquiry that tried to cut unofficial ties between the police and the press means that no one can ring up a you know, no officer can ring up a a journalist and say, Look, can I just have ten minutes off the record with you and tell you what we got? They can't do that. And y therefore the leaks you get are really startling. The sun, the photo the sun got of the suspect was astonishing. So I w I don't know that the Leverson inquiry has helped us really.

Mark: No, I think it's been very detrimental. sat, I was invited by the National Police and Council to sit at the National Police Conference to talk about the media coverage of Nicola Bulley. This is this young lady, of course, that died and the huge failings of that police force to be able to deal with the media. And I can see some of those elements in Devon and Cornwall Police, because I think what you end up having, sadly, within police force comms teams, are people who haven't been on national news teams. These aren't people who are frontline reporters. These are people who've worked either in local news or in magazines. And they don't really understand. And I think many chief constables or senior officers just don't understand the seriousness of the words that they're using and quite how that's going to be interpreted. to suggest that we're not looking for anything, anyone else, as far as a statement to make, you're effectively saying, well, we've got our man and we're pinning it on him now. rather than to say, we are open to all new information coming in. We've reassured, we put extra patrols in the area. Just give some confidence, you know, in terms of that. So I think there is, I think there's a huge learning curve to come to this from not just Devon and Cornwall Police, but actually all police forces. And I will be contacting the National Police Council again, so, you know, there's some serious issues that you as a, you know, as kind of like... coordinating body need to raise with comms teams because there is some serious failings here. Let's look at counterterrorism command. So counterterrorism command have taken on a completely new role in today's world of terrorism. Terrorism back in the 1990s was very much IRA and that was where terrorism came from. In fact, when we look at the previous deaths of politicians, prior to the two murders that we had in 2016 and and Joe Cox's murder, you know, we had that before that was all IRA, you know, totally IRA. But now it's very different. know, it's Islamic extremisms, know, political extremism that's created that change. And of course, terrorism has changed the way that it looks now. And legislation has changed. So what we do know is a 28 year old was arrested on suspicion of murder. Now there's a time clock that starts ticking in order for you to then either bring charges or apply to the court for extensions, but it's very limited. what we do have when we deal with terrorism is we have an extended clock. And that extended clock is really significant because it allows the police extra time to keep people in custody. And that is why it has gone quiet now, because prior to requiring extra time, they have seven days.

jeremy: Yeah.

Mark: And that clock starts again. So whilst he was arrested on suspicion of murder, as soon as he was arrested in relation to terrorist offences, that clock starts again. so he had the police have seven days, huge assist to the police because of course what they want to do is get his technology examined. They want to get the CCTV examined from the route from Rotherham all the way down to Devon. And they want to be able to look at service stations. They want to be able to look at the CCTV footage. So that's it allows them a huge amount of time and in technology now of course it will be a huge assist to police because not just in relation to the obvious stuff but there's a lot of hidden stuff within mobile phones that provides tracking data.

jeremy: But yeah, i I I'm struggling with the definition of terrorism because like you, I'm I was, you know, I I I was brought up with the IRA, then they arrest someone and it's you know, it's a guy from the Republic of Ireland and he's got a certain type of name and he's Irish and he was building a bomb and he got caught building the bomb and you know, it was all kind of clear, wasn't it? It was and they were in a cell and Jerry Adams was sort of in charge, or maybe he wasn't. that was Those were simpler days, you're right, but it was quite analog in a way. And then we moved to Al Qaeda, and again, you've got people who are operating under some sort of chain of command. But then we end up with with people who basically they don't have any affiliation with anyone. And they wake up one day and they decide they like bin Laden and they're gonna go and hurt someone. Now, so they're not in an organization, they're just bad people who've connected with an ideology. Now, then we get a secondary thing, and the secondary thing. Thing we've we've you know, you mentioned where they got to with ethnicity, and that the case that caused all the trouble was Axel Rudicabana, who killed those children in Southport, and that was so horrific. Now he had some material that was political and he did a terrifying thing. Is he a terrorist? And and it may be that we've so I th I think probably if you attack a politician, you Because they're a politician because you disagree with them, that's probably the new definition of terror, whether or not you're in a club of any kind, Al-Qaeda, IRA, whatever. You may not have to be. But we've got to get our heads around this. And I think one thing that helps the police is using anti-terror laws to extend the time they've got this suspect in custody. That clearly helps them. But it doesn't help us understand what terrorism is now. And if it's lone wolf terrorism. That is new, isn't it? Terrorism to me is something that a gang of people get up to to disrupt a society. It's not one person who's, you know, decided to ruin somebody else's, you know, year or life. It's not that. It's something it's I it the the definition is moving too much. And we must talk before we you know, the next thing we must talk about is politicians, because I was gonna say one thing, Mark, about about Anne. If you put the most endangered politicians in a list, right? You've got six hundred and fifty in the House of Commons. You've got about eight hundred in the House of Lords. You've got the Scottish Parliament, you've got the God, the Northern Ireland Assembly, you think about targets in there. You've then got The Welsh Seneth as well. You've got and you've got even councils, and you've got, you know, the Mayor of Manchester, the Mayor of London. I would think the Mayor of London would be in your top hundred if you're looking at the hundred most at risk politicians. So that's what you do. You guard the hundred most at risk. And then you know what happens? The ones who get attacked are not the ones you expect. I would never have thought Joe Cox would be attacked. She was a lovely constituency MP, effective, not

Mark: Mm.

jeremy: Not a big campaigner on any one thing except poverty. So why do they attack her? Why do they attack David Amos, who's been around for years and years and years as a backbencher? Not very ideological. And Annie, she'd been on strictly for crying out loud. Does that make her a target? So I if we can't work out who the targets are, we are faced with protecting as many as 5,000 people who are in public life.

Mark: Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, and I think, you know, policing has to address this head on in terms of what is terrorism. Terrorism is a moving object all the time because it's gone are the days where terrorism was caused by bombs. You know, it's now caused by cars. It's called by knife. It's called by gun. It's called by an individual rather than an organization. I just want to pick up on one point, which is the point you made about Leveson and the communication between the police. So we have. a process where the police can talk to a body of journalists who sit under the Crime Reporters Association. What concerns me massively is we have a suspect, 28 year old suspect, who's arrested in relation to the murder of Anne Widdecombe. And within a matter of hours, we have a video circulating of this suspect in his car. or open the door of his car with what looks like a wooden object in his pocket. Now, my position here would be why has the Devon Cornwall police, the counterterrorism not gone to the sun and said, listen, we've got to work together on this. is not an item. That is not a piece of CCTV that should be going out there. That's really crucial evidence in relation to our ongoing investigation. And actually so much so it could potentially jeopardize the fourth, the, you know, if there is to be a trial, because we've now suddenly got a position where a time is given for that CCTV. And then of course, then people are trying to work out, well, can they travel from this location to this location in the four and a half hours time? So what you've effectively got is because of the lack of, of real clear clarity between Devon and Cornwall police. anti-terrorism, counter-terrorism command and the sun by saying, listen, let's work together. We'll give you exclusive access. I mean, if I was there, I'd be saying to listen, you've got the lead on this. We'll give you exclusive access to work with us. Suppress that material at this present moment in time because it really could cause us problems down the road. Because ultimately as a, as journalists,

jeremy: Mm.

Mark: And as reporters, we have an ethical duty. Now I feel I probably got more of an ethical duty than others because I'm a former detective and I take that really seriously. But you've got to be appealing to these people and say, listen, that could cause us problems. So I think there's a big learning here from police forces to go, do you know what? We need to communicate much, much better. We need to take journalists into our confidence. Great piece of journalism, but could seriously affect.

jeremy: Yeah.

Mark: any potential trial if that were to be the case. Let's look at the risk that exists to politicians. And I think there is a real serious risk. mean, what have we had in the last few days? We had Mr. Youssef, who is the UK spokesperson, Home Affairs spokesperson for the Reform Party, who's claimed that Farage lives in mortal danger. Having received, and this is a shocking number if true, 1,577 threats since February, including 597 death threats. for me, if those are death threats and if those are receiving threats, why have we not heard of these people being prosecuted? We had an arrest recently, but that's the first one we've really heard of. So first of all, question is, are these genuine threats? And if so, have they been reported to the police and what have the police done about it? And we've got to look at this in terms of the bigger picture. Now Farage is probably the safest man walking at the moment. He's got his own detail, having spent an awful lot of his own money in relation to that. He's had offers for detail to be given to him for security and he's turned that down to have his own. But it does, of course, then displace it because... If we're going, if Farage is the safest man walking at the moment, which he clearly is, okay, threats can still get to him, but people can't get to him. Where is the other threat? And the other thing that I want to flag up, and this is something that I deal with quite a lot of people or work with quite a lot of people who are quite high net worth individuals. In today's world, what are you doing posting personal pictures, identifying pictures of your house and your family and your children? Why are your addresses still identifiable? Remove them, take them off the internet. It can all be done. And I have to say, you are creating a target for yourself.

jeremy: Yeah, but I don't know because once you say you I mean, had I had this conversation with dear Anne, I would have said, Anne, you've got to put in electric gate at the end of your driveway. She'd already been told to do that, refused. You can't call your house Whittacombe's Rest. She may well have been told that, refused. You mustn't go on TV showing your house, which she did last week on Quest TV, where she showed somebody round her house and the swimming pool and I mean it's it some of them are just not gonna do it, you know, and I and and they at some point they think, why do I especially if you're an MP. Remember, your whole thing as an MP is I am living in my constituency and serving my constituents, and I'm part of this, and I'm gonna go to the local fate. And I was talking to an MP last week, I won't say who it was, but she was saying, I've now got my surge. Surgery, when she obviously that's that's the weekly constituency gathering where anyone can come and see you, and the people know where you're gonna be, and that's how David Amos was killed. The guy cues up and stabs him to death. So so this MP, who's a MP in Birmingham, said I now have a security guard in my surgery, but you know what? I then go shopping at Aldi in the afternoon on my own. Tell me how that makes any sense. Because to protect me, you'd have to protect every bit of my life, including my house. And that means, and then you've got to have a sense.

Mark: Yeah. I know.

jeremy: entry at the end of Anne's driveway, which and but she's never gonna take that. So we it's w I don't know. You know, it's gonna be very interesting when we see the motivations for w whoever is convicted. I want to prejudge this case obviously because it may be we're just dealing with somebody with a screw loose.

Mark: No.

jeremy: And it's nothing to do with terror in the old fashioned sense. It's a guy who's radicalized himself through boredom. And he's seen her on TV and he's thought, I fancy going to see her, and he's driven hundreds of miles.

Mark: But we can gain, what we know as a society now is there are people out there who want to do other people harm. And, you know, unfortunately, if somebody says, look, I don't care, you know, no one's gonna have a pop at me, I don't care. And if they do, they do. Then, you know, ultimately, you're not gonna be able to help those people. But I think as a society, there are people out there who have got to realize that they are greater risk than other people. And...

jeremy: Yeah.

Mark: You know, the world that we're in now, which is a really, really messed up world in many, many ways, means that politicians, certain high profile individuals, you know, they, by the very nature of the way social media works, by the very nature of the way that people communicate now, makes them more vulnerable. And sadly, it is times like this that makes the nation sit up and think, do you know what, actually, can we do a bit more? What is there more that we can do? Now, ultimately, if Anna turned around and said, look, I've been told about this, but I really care and I'm not going to do it, then sadly, can't. That is one element of protecting yourself that obviously, if she succumbs to the violence of a horrible person taking that out on her, the risk would have been reduced. That's why we deal with risk all the time. I think we've just got to say to people out there, the likes of the politicians and things, just take extra care. You can speak to your police force, you can speak to other individuals out there who can give you some guidance in terms of how to keep safe. And that's not just politicians, that's high network worth individuals as well as people who potentially listen. I've got a public profile and I do high profile programs, but I've had people who have written death threats to me, I've had someone who sent me an incendiary device. So even I, at my level, have done And as a result of that, I protect my address, nobody knows where I live, I make sure that I'm very careful. You know, I do a lot of those things that I'm aware that people can't follow me or if there was, I would be aware. So I just think as a society, it is more dangerous today than it ever has been.

jeremy: Yeah. Well, we should end with a thought about about Anne. When I heard she'd been murdered, and I've got to admit, I'm still in shock about it. I still can't believe I'm not going to see that that lovely lady again who used to come to my studio and make us all laugh. My first thought, Mark, and I went on the police's account, so they were clearly leading us towards burglary. And I thought, I know what's happened. A guy has wandered in, he's seen the front door open because she left her door open because it was hot. He's walked in to burgle her. She's confronted him and given him both barrels, and he's there. Attacked her. And I thought that that's in a tragic situation. That's the only outcome that will give me any solace that she lived and died as Ann Whittacom. What we're hearing now, that it's targeted, if it was, that is horrific. She's a fr for all her noise and wonderful showbiz belligerence, she was a little old lady.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, think, listen, as we as we record this, there is a 28 year old male in custody. There's a lot of speculation in terms of why they're in custody. I think what we have to do as a society is pull together. Remember that actually, you know what? This was a lady who had incredible principles. She grew up through a political system. She's a generation that's different to many of us. And I think we have to have a level of respect in terms of that. and I think we have to give the police the time. Yeah, there's criticism, of course there's criticism, it's a very high profile case and I'd like to think that there is some reflection by Devlin Cornwall Police, National Police Council, those people that are involved in relation to making some decisions and statements that have been made. But right now, I think as a society, as a nation, we need to get behind the police, let's support them in terms of whatever they do, let's wait for the outcome, which won't be... many days away. And let's hope for Anne, for her family, for her friends, for people that got to know her very well, there is some kind of conclusion to this and that the criminal justice system is on her side. And whatever the outcome is over the next few days, it's the right outcome.

jeremy: Well, we thought it was important to do this because this is a horrific crime. We want to underline that the courts must do their job whenever they do that. We're not prejudging who may have committed the crime, but we did this out of respect for Anne Whittakom. And because we hope the police reach a conclusion swiftly here, this has been a horrible, horrible crime. And thank you for watching, listening to this special edition of Thirty Minute Crime. I'll end with a quote that I heard at the weekend. There was such a good article I saw written by someone who knew Anne Whittakom, and he said of the murderer, you have taken her death, but you won't take her life.

Mark: Jeremy, think given you know, I just think you should say, look, you know, we felt it important to do this. And