Security guard Gavin Plumb sobs in court as he's found guilty of plotting to rape and kill Holly Willoughby
The man accused of planning to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby has been found guilty by a jury at Chelmsford Crown Court and faces years behind bars
A twisted security guard is today facing years behind bars after being found guilty of planning to snatch, rape and murder Holly Willoughby.
Obsessed Gavin Plumb plotted to knock out the TV star and her husband with chloroform in a night raid at their home, a jury has found. Plumb denied the charges but was found guilty by a jury of eight women and four men at Chelmsford Crown Court.
The jury found Plumb guilty on one count of soliciting murder, one count of plotting to kidnap and one count of plotting to rape. Plumb slumped forward as the first of the three guilty verdicts was handed down. Shaking his head, he then began to weep and sniff before being led away.
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He is due to be sentenced next Friday at the same court by Justice Edward Murray who is expected to hear a statement from Holly outlining how Plumb's crimes impacted her and her family. Speaking outside court Det Chief Insp Greg Wood said: "I've got no doubt that Gavin Plumb is a really dangerous individual who carefully thought out a plan to find out where the victim lived, how to get there, purchased significant items online and tried to find someone like-minded to carry out those plans.
"The risk that he posed was real. It wasn't just online chat, it was planned for a number of years to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby." Holly announced soon after Plumb's arrest in October last year that she was stepping down from This Morning after 14 years on the ITV show. She said in a social media post at the time she felt "I have to make this decision for me and my family".
Mr Wood said the offences "must have had a significant impact" on the presenter and her family. He said: "Women and girls should be free to go about their daily life, whether in person or online, without fear of people stalking them, harassing them, threatening to cause them serious and significant violence."
On one online chat room, called Abduct Lovers, Plumb had sordid chats about Holly with an undercover US police officer calling himself David Nelson. Mr Wood said: "I think there's a responsibility for social media companies to do more. "When you think that David Nelson managed to, without too much difficulty, find a chat room called 'Abduct Lovers', it wasn't on the dark web, this wasn't deep and hidden.
"If he could find it quite easily, I'm pretty sure those who have responsibility for those companies could find them quite easily and close them down. By not doing so, there are people, predominantly men, who continue to threaten violence against women. There are women and girls in Essex and across the country that have to go through similar things every day and whether it's deep fake or uploading private images that people don't want uploaded, we need to I think as a society understand that there isn't a difference between online and offline."
Plum, 37, was found guilty of plotting to kidnap and rape between December 2021 and October last year. He was also found guilty of soliciting the murder of Holly between October 2 and 5 last year. Giving evidence during his trial, Plumb portrayed himself as the victim.
The "prolific liar" blamed his ex for his attacks on other women, saying he did it as a "cry for help" to escape his "toxic relationship" before his weight ballooned to 35st. The cowardly father-of-two said of the relationship: "I was constantly put down, I was constantly told I'm not good enough, she can do much better than me."
Plumb, who said he spent "99.9%" of his time online, blamed the woman for his attempts to kidnap two female airline stewards on the Stansted Express in 2006, saying he carried it out to get himself jailed. "For me, it was my only option - being in the relationship that I was in, it was toxic, I was extremely young, I needed to find a way out," he said. Mr Wood said of Plumb's claims: "I think that goes to the heart of the kind of person Gavin Plumb is.
"When he was questioned about his previous offences, he didn't take responsibility for that. He said he was trying to get himself out of a relationship and there was no real thought for the impact that would have had on them." The court heard how Plumb spent almost two years plotting the snatch, during which time he unwittingly shared his plans with an undercover police officer in the US online.
He also showed images to a contact of imitation firearms and a video of his "kit", laid out on a bed, including hand and ankle shackles, a ball gag, rope, metal cable ties and handcuffs. Plumb described the plan as his "ultimate fantasy", and added: "Fantasy isn't enough any more. I want the real thing."
Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told jurors during Plumb's trial that Holly would have suffered "catastrophic violence" had he not been arrested. She described Plumb as a "sly individual" and a "prolific liar" who tried to "minimise the extent of his criminality". Opening the case, she said: "You will consider, is this the talk of a fantasist or is this someone who expresses himself with such dark depravity that it is clear that he meant what he said?
"The prosecution's case is that the online discussions that this defendant had revealed his real intentions to kidnap Holly Willoughby from her family home, to take her to a location where she would be raped repeatedly before the defendant then intended to kill her. It was not just the ramblings of a fantasist. The defendant had carefully planned what he would do and how he would do it, purchasing items that would assist him."
Plumb told the BBC in 2018 he did not leave the house for years after hitting 35st and quitting his then job at Pizza Hut for health reasons. He said he gorged on junk food and downed around 36 pints of cola a week. Plumb added: "My weight has always fluctuated. At my heaviest, I was 35 and a half stone. When the weight started to pile on, that was when my mental health really went down.
"I'm pretty much in pain everywhere. I get chest pains and I've just been told it's because of my weight." He told how he had a gastric band fitted and had to go on a liquid diet. Plumb said: "People think overweight people are lazy and don't want to exercise. They do but sometimes it's just not physically possible."
In December 2022, Plumb set out his plans for what he would do once he got into Holly's home, including using metal ties to restrain her and incapacitating her husband, Dan Baldwin. And in March 2023, he said in a voicemail to a man called Marc he met online: "Plan of action? we're gonna hit it hard, hit it at night, less traffic on the road.
"Chloroform both of them that way then they can both be easily restrained. Pick out outfits of hers that we like and then obviously take her and the outfits with us and then we're gone." Plumb later sent images to Marc of an order that he had made for chloroform and a bottle was found by police at the home of the accused in Harlow, Essex.
In another message, he said: "We're going to force her to make a video that she came with us under her own free will... so that covers us." Plumb even considered taking a tour of 43-year-old Holly's TV studio and trying to get a job as her security guard in a bid to get close to her.
He discussed the layout of her address, including the gates, the apparent absence of CCTV and an alleyway at the side of the property. Plumb also shared "deep fake pornography images" of Holly. And he discussed Jill Dando, the BBC broadcaster shot dead on her doorstep in April 1999.
He bought 400 metal cable ties on Amazon and later shared an image of a dungeon-type room with Marc who replied: "Her screams could not be heard for miles." In a file marked "Holly" on his phone, Plumb had 10,322 photos of the former This Morning host. He shared his alleged plans with the US officer from the Owatonna Police Department in Minnesota, named David Nelson.
Calling himself BigBear in exchanges, he said of Holly: "I know when she does and don't have security and that she doesn't have CCTV at home, what time she gets up in the morning." He told Nelson he was "definitely serious" about his plans. Plumb was arrested on October 4 after the officer alerted the Met.
When told he was accused of a conspiracy to kidnap Holly, he replied: "I'm not gonna lie, she is a fantasy of mine." Plumb had been jailed for threatening two 16-year-old girls with a knife at a Woolworths store where he worked in November 2008. He tied one up in a stockroom.
Ms Morgan said: "Both of the girls were terrified. These were real offences, committed against real women, involving this defendant threatening them and trying to control and detain them. He had an imitation firearm. He had ropes and tapes. He had bound the hands of one of the victims." Plumb later boasted to Nelson that he was jailed for 16 months.
His "obsessive behaviour" extended to other celebrities and to a female neighbour whose pictures were taken from her Facebook page. He was previously convicted of attempting to kidnap two air stewardesses in separate incidents after threatening them on trains. In August 2006 Plumb sat opposite one terrified woman before handing her a note that read: "I have got a gun. All you have to do is keep quiet.
"Do what I say. So just stand up and get off at the next stop with me. Don't cry or make a sound. Don't stop me from touching you because I won't hurt you. If you do all of this, no one will get hurt but if you don't I am going to shoot you and myself and everyone else."
The woman began to cry and Plumb tore up the note and ran off. Two days later he tried to abduct another female passenger while armed with an imitation firearm after handing her a note claiming he was a police officer and ordering her to get off at the next stop.
Ms Morgan said the incidents showed he knew "what it would take to terrify and overpower a woman". Holly has waived her right to anonymity as the alleged victim of a sexual offence.
She did not give evidence at the trial.
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