A former councillor has been jailed for 20 weeks after being found guilty of stalking ex-cabinet minister Dame Penny Mordaunt.
Edward Brandt, 61, was found guilty of the offence in November following a trial at Southampton Crown Court.
But he was acquitted of the more serious offence of stalking involving serious alarm or distress.
The court previously heard the former Conservative cabinet minister believed he was a “real threat” and feared “sexual violence” because of his “creepy” behaviour.
The trial was told that Brandt sent at least 17 emails and three phone messages to Dame Penny, 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 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.”
Brandt, who had 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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