A former councillor has been found guilty of stalking Dame Penny Mordaunt but acquitted of the more serious offence of stalking involving serious alarm or distress.
A jury convicted Edward Brandt, 61, of the lesser charge by a majority of 10 to two following a trial at Southampton Crown Court.
Brandt wept and held his hands over his face after he heard the verdicts.
The court heard the former Conservative cabinet minister believed he was a “real threat” and feared “sexual violence”.
The trial was told that Brandt sent at least 17 emails and three phone messages to Ms Mordaunt, as well as turning up at her Portsmouth constituency office out of hours between 11 September 2023 and 12 May 2024.
Brandt, who lived on the Isle of Wight at the time, failed 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 trial heard.
The divorced father-of-two, who now lives in Lymington, Hampshire, then left two voicemail messages for her on 6 and 10 May, 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.”
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Brandt, who worked as a professional sailor, was also made subject to an interim stalking protection order at Isle of Wight Magistrates’ Court on 16 July 2024.
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Dame Penny said in a statement to police that she “feared sexual violence” because of the defendant’s “creepy” behaviour.
Judge William Mousley KC adjourned the case for a pre-sentence report to be prepared on Brandt, a former councillor for East Hampshire District Council, and released him on conditional bail until the sentencing hearing on 16 January.
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‘This man was a real threat’
Dame Penny, who was emotional at times, 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.
“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 the Conservative Party leadership candidate, Brandt 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.”
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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.”
