Gavin Plumb’s sick plot to murder had ‘life-changing impact’ on Holly Willoughby

Gavin Plumb is being sentenced today after being found guilty of masterminding a plot to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby (Picture: Essex Police/PA Wire)

Security guard Gavin Plumb’s plot to to kidnap, rape and murder the TV presenter Holly Willoughby left her with a ‘life changing’ impact.

He was unanimously convicted of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap following an earlier trial at Chelmsford Crown Court and is being sentenced today.

He faces a lengthy prison sentence for his ‘depraved and vile’ plans.

The 37-year-old was snared after a US undercover police officer infiltrated an online group called Abduct Lovers and became so concerned about Plumb’s posts that evidence was passed to the FBI.

US law enforcement in turn contacted police in the UK, and when Essex Police officers raided Plumb’s flat in Harlow they found bottles of chloroform and an ‘abduction kit’ complete with cable ties.

Jurors were told that more than 10,000 images of Willoughby were found on Plumb’s phone.

During Plumb’s sentencing hearing, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said Willoughby wished for her victim personal statement to be private but said it set out the ‘catastrophic impact of these offences’.

Plumb was convicted of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap Holly Willoughby (Picture: Kieron McCarron/ITV/Shutterstock)

She continued: ‘What I can say, and I make this submission from the prosecution… it is abundantly clear that in making that statement the prosecution submits the impact of this offending has been life-changing for the victim of these offences – both in private and personal terms – private, personal and indeed professional.

‘It is clear, the prosecution submit… that the extent of the shock and fear caused by this offending has been impossible to convey.

‘Indeed, being informed of the consequences, the intentions, and the detail of the evidence in this case… it is inevitable that that has exacerbated the trauma for this victim.’

Ms Morgan said Willoughby had ‘made every effort to avoid attention being drawn to herself in this matter’ after making a short public statement following Plumb’s convictions.

The prosecutor continued: ‘We say, more broadly, that offending of this type, as Ms Willoughby said in her public statement, has a broader impact on women.

‘Women should not feel unsafe when going about their daily lives.’

Turning to the offending of Plumb, Ms Morgan said: ‘My Lord knows of the extreme and gratuitous degradation of the victim that was planned by this defendant.

‘Degradation that was so depraved and vile that they were, by agreement, not reported in detail by representatives of the media.’

The prosecutor said it was a case ‘where the court should impose a sentence of life imprisonment’.

His defence barrister then told the court that Plumb ‘worshipped and was obsessed’ by Willoughby and was ‘devastated to be the cause of such pain to her’.

Sasha Wass KC, mitigating for Plumb, told Chelmsford Crown Court that the defendant ‘worshipped and was obsessed by Ms Willoughby for a period of years, admittedly in a warped and bizarre manner’.

‘A manner which he described as dark when he gave evidence,’ she added.

Plumb is being sentenced today (Picture: Crown Prosecution Service/PA Wire)

Ms Wass continued: ‘He was devastated to be the cause of such pain to her as she described in that very detailed statement (which Ms Willoughby chose to submit to the court privately).’

She said Plumb ‘remains embarrassed and ashamed’, and said he ‘always expected’ the online conversations that formed the focus of the trial ‘would remain private’.

Plumb wept after he was convicted of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap following an earlier trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Former This Morning star Willoughby, 43, issued a statement shortly after, saying: ‘As women we should not be made to feel unsafe going about our daily lives and in our own home.’

Thanking the undercover police and the Crown Prosecution Service ‘for ensuring that justice was done and that the defendant will not be able to harm any more women’, she went on: ‘I would also like to commend the bravery of his previous victims for speaking up at the time. Without their bravery this conviction may not have been possible.’

Ahead of the hearing, a former victim of Plumb, who chose to remain anonymous in their interview with the BBC, spoke of being ‘frozen and scared’ when he attempted to kidnap her.

She said: ‘He had a rope and replica gun on him.

‘As I read that note it was only then I looked at him. My first impression was that: he is huge, I have no chance.

‘There was this moment when I was frozen and scared.

‘But it was also disbelief, I thought maybe he is joking, it is absurd, but he started approaching me with his hands, he held his hand on my knee and he was indicating that ‘we are going to go’.

‘After the initial freeze and disbelief I realised what’s going on and I was frightened, that feeling was growing because I started realising that this massive man wants to get me off the train and I knew the next station is in a small village.’

Plumb’s victim added: ‘I had all the worst scenarios cooking in my head. And I thought if I get off that train, he can do anything and so my thought was not to get off that train at any cost.’

Willoughby released a statement saying: ‘As women we should not be made to feel unsafe going about our daily lives and in our own home.’ (Picture: Dave J Hogan/Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images)

Asked if she felt a prison sentence could have prevented future attacks, the woman told the BBC: ‘I believe so, I believe that lack of punishment was only encouragement.

‘He could go unpunished doing whatever he did, if he got away with it – why not try again?’

She continued: ‘Potentially every man can be a perpetrator and I understand that so many women think along the same lines. A large man sitting right next to a girl: that is a potential danger.

‘It is really sad but that is one of those takeaways from that unfortunate story for me.

‘When I look at men I very often do that quick judgement, what level of danger are they?’

Addressing Willoughby, the woman told the BBC: ‘I do feel for Holly because obviously she had to go through it in the spotlight, it must be difficult.

‘You do not want your name to be attached to a person like Gavin Plumb and this is one reason I want to remain anonymous. I do not want to be associated with him in any way.’

Gavin Plumb wept after he was convicted (Picture: Julia Quenzler / SWNS)

The trial last week was told that Plumb’s plans were foiled when a potential accomplice who he spoke to online turned out to be an undercover officer from the Owatonna Police Department in the US state of Minnesota.

Plumb told the officer, who was using the pseudonym David Nelson, that he was ‘definitely serious’ about his plot to kidnap Willoughby, leaving the officer with the impression that there was an ‘imminent threat’ to her.

When Plumb was arrested on October 4 last year and officers told him that the allegations concerned Willoughby, the defendant told them: ‘I’m not gonna lie, she is a fantasy of mine.’

Plumb’s kidnap plans involved attempting to ‘ambush’ Willoughby at her family home – even discussing taking time off work in order to organise the attack.

He told others he would then take the presenter to another location, which he suggested would be a ‘dungeon’-type room.

Plumb had described silencing Willoughby’s TV producer husband Dan Baldwin, and restraining her with handcuffs, as well as ‘getting rid of the body’.

Prosecutors described Plumb’s plot as ‘carefully planned’ – pointing to the items he had purchased and the lengths to which he had gone to find out when Ms Willoughby did not have security.

In her opening to the jury, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told the court of his previous convictions for false imprisonment and attempted kidnap, saying that they showed he ‘knew what it would take to terrify and overpower a woman’.

Plumb had argued in his defence that it was just online chat and fantasy.

The court also heard about previous kidnap attempts that Plumb had carried out, including tying up a 16-year-old girl’s hands with rope and tape in 2008.

Two years later, he attempted to force two different women off a train with him with the threat of a gun.

Asked what she now thought of her past attacker, the anonymised victim told the BBC: ‘I feel like he lost his life, anybody has capacity to have a wonderful life ahead of them.

‘He has in my eyes, he has nothing in life. It makes him in a way more dangerous, you know a person who has nothing to lose.

‘No ability to control himself. I almost feel pity for him.’

Plumb is being sentenced on Friday by judge Mr Justice Edward Murray.

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