A former councillor has been sentenced to 20 weeks in prison for stalking Penny Mordaunt, the former cabinet minister, who said she feared 'sexual violence' due to his behaviour. Edward Brandt, 61, a professional sailor, was found guilty of stalking but acquitted of a more serious charge of stalking involving serious alarm or distress.
The trial at Southampton Crown Court heard that Brandt sent at least 17 emails and three phone messages to Mordaunt, and turned up at her Portsmouth constituency office out-of-hours between 11 September 2023 and 12 May 2024. In a victim impact statement, Mordaunt, a former Conservative Party leadership candidate, said she was 'completely exhausted due to the stress' and felt compelled to 'look over her shoulder' constantly.
Brandt was also sentenced for seven breaches of a stalking protection order, in place until November 2034, by failing to notify police of devices capable of connecting to the internet and of creating accounts on Facebook and Snapchat. He received 12 weeks for the stalking offence and eight weeks consecutively for the breaches.
Sentencing Brandt, Judge Mousley said: 'I am satisfied that there is a real risk of you reoffending or causing harm to other people. Also, having regard to the nature of these offences, the appropriate punishment must be by way of immediate imprisonment.' The court heard that Brandt, who now lives in Lymington, Hampshire, had failed to comply with a verbal police warning and a conditional caution issued in April 2024.
Brandt, a former member of East Hampshire District Council, told the court he wanted to 'congratulate' Mordaunt and shake her 'gold-plated and precious hand', insisting his intentions were 'entirely political and entirely harmless'. He said he had been diagnosed with ADHD and being on the autism spectrum. In mitigation, his lawyer Timothy Dracass argued that Brandt's responsibility was 'substantially reduced' due to his neurodiverse condition.
