Former councillor found guilty of stalking Penny Mordaunt

Edward Brandt, formerly of Freshwater, who now lives in Lymington, was found guilty of stalking the former Portsmouth North MP, at Southampton Crown Court.

But jurors acquitted him of a second, more serious charge of stalking involving serious alarm or distress.

The jury returned the guilty verdict by a majority of ten to two.

Edward Brandt leaving Southampton Crown Court after he appeared charged with one charge of stalking (Image: Ben Mitchell/PA Wire)

The trial had been told that Brandt sent the former leader of the House of Commons at least 17 emails and three phone messages, as well as turning up at her Portsmouth office out of hours.

Brandt, who lived on the Isle of Wight at the time, is accused of failing to comply with the terms of a conditional caution issued in April 2024 which required him to complete a victim awareness course and not to contact Dame Penny.

The 61-year-old left two voicemail messages for her on May 6 and 10 and in one of the messages, he said: “I am going to go on gently knocking at your door in order to shake your hand, I am not giving up.”

The divorced father-of-two, who worked as a professional sailor, was also made subject to an interim stalking protection order at Isle of Wight Magistrates’ Court on July 16, 2024.

Dame Penny said in a statement to police that she “feared sexual violence” because of the defendant’s “creepy” behaviour.

She told the court: “I have been a parliamentarian for 14 years and during that time, I have had to deal with all kinds of threats and issues.

“It’s different from your average citizen, I am quite used to dealing with this and I am quite a robust individual.

“The difference between this case and even threats to shoot me and my family, they are easier to deal with because that threat is not constantly present, it’s not something you are having to think about every single day when you are leaving your house.

Penny Mordaunt arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London, to appear on the BBC One current (Image: James Manning)

“I am not a professional, I do not have counselling experience but I have a lot of life experience and dealing with vulnerable people or people who are mentally unwell or strange in another way and I believe this man was a real threat to me and still is.”

Explaining why he wanted to meet Dame Penny, Brandt, a former councillor for East Hampshire District Council, told the court: “I wanted to commiserate with her for not getting the top job in the autumn, I think she would still have been prime minister if she had been.

“I wanted to congratulate her because she was a reforming leader of the Commons, I wanted to congratulate her on the coronation, chat to her about her time in office, have her sign a copy of her book.

“It was entirely political and entirely harmless.”

Brandt, who said that he had been diagnosed as having ADHD and being on the autism spectrum, said that he had not had responses from Dame Penny’s office about his requests to meet her and added: “I wasn’t getting a reply, I harmlessly kept trying.”