A University of Aberdeen worker has been charged over a social media post that allegedly celebrated the killing of Ann Widdecombe, after Police Scotland reversed an earlier finding that no crime had been committed.
Widdecombe, 78, the former Conservative minister who'd become one of Reform UK's best known faces, was found dead at her Devon home on Thursday 9 July with serious injuries. A man of 28 is in custody, with counter terrorism police leading the murder investigation.
Video: TalkTV. Ann Widdecombe speaking on TalkTV on Wednesday 8 July 2026, saying she had "very little trust left now in parliamentary processes".
What the post about Ann Widdecombe reportedly said
Heather Herbert, 50, a web developer at the university, was reported to police over a post on Bluesky, the social media platform. Referring to the news of Widdecombe’s death, it reportedly read:
“Some good news for once. I hope it was an extremely painful death.”
Heather Herbert is a trans campaigner who fought the BBC over the word woman
Herbert is not a private figure. She's a transgender campaigner and a former Scottish Labour candidate who stood for the party in Aberdeen Donside at the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, and who served as trans officer for LGBT+ Labour Scotland.
In April 2025 she appeared on BBC News to attack the UK Supreme Court's ruling that, under equality law, a woman is defined by biological sex. She said the decision risked dragging Britain towards "Trump's America", and clashed with the presenter Martine Croxall, who pushed back by asking "how is this an attack on anyone?" Herbert replied, "I am a woman, where does this leave me?"
Police Scotland charged Heather Herbert only after a public backlash
Police Scotland first said there was no criminality in the post. After what it called further assessment, and following a public outcry, the force arrested and charged her.
"We received reports on Saturday 11 July 2026 relating to a post made online. Following further assessment, a 50-year-old has been arrested and charged in connection. A report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal."
The procurator fiscal is Scotland's public prosecutor, who'll decide whether the case goes any further. The University of Aberdeen is also looking into Herbert's conduct, according to reports.
The murder case has since reached court
The man charged over Ann Widdecombe's death has since been named as Joshua Kerry, and a court has heard she was struck on the head 21 times with a hammer as she ate lunch. Those proceedings are entirely separate from the charge against Heather Herbert, which concerns only what was posted online after the death became public. The case against Joshua Kerry is untested and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Threats against Reform UK figures were already running hot
The Herbert charge landed in a week when the party Ann Widdecombe represented was already counting the cost of political hatred. A man was arrested over a threat to shoot Nigel Farage in the head, and Reform UK said it had logged 1,577 threats against its people. Police forces on both sides of the border are now making judgement calls about which online posts cross from ugly opinion into criminal conduct, and Police Scotland reversing itself inside a week shows how unsettled those calls still are.
For Australian readers the relevance is direct. The same argument about where free speech ends and criminality begins is running here, and the answer Britain lands on has a habit of reaching our shores a few years later.
No plea has been entered and Herbert hasn't commented publicly. She's entitled to the presumption of innocence.
