Killer primary school teacher Fiona Beal ahs been jailed for life with a minimum term of 20 years after luring her cheating boyfriend into the bedroom before murdering him and burying him in the garden.
Fiona Beal, 50, lured builder Nick Billingham, 42, into the bedroom with the promise of sex and before ‘executing’ him in the Northampton home they shared.
The Year 6 teacher told friends they had tested positive for Covid so she would not be disturbed while she built a makeshift grave and repainted her home to hide the blood.
Twelve days after the murder, on November 1, 2021, she hid Mr Billingham’s van on a side street a mile from the home and went to B&Q to purchase items for a makeshift grave.
Later that day she bought a large fleece blanket, a vibrator and a herb grinder for cannabis on his Amazon account.
A police mugshot of Fiona Beal, who pleaded guilty in April during a retrial at the Old Bailey
Nick Billingham, 42, was stabbed to death by Beal who buried his body in their garden
Beal also repeatedly used her partner’s phone to watch pornography after the murder.
Mr Billingham’s mummified body was found four months later wrapped in sheeting in a grave on which Beal had placed a plant pot for ‘decorative effect.’
Andrew Wheeler, KC, defending, said Beal had been ‘courageous’ for pleading guilty to murder on the third day of her second trial.
‘She has had the courage to enter a plea to murder which as the court knows happens extremely rarely.’
He said Beal cannot remember any of the details of the killing or the period after due to ‘traumatic amnesia’.
‘Ms Beal cannot remember any of the detail of the material time and expert evidence continues to support her in that regard in terms of recognised amnesia.’
He said Mr Billingham was ‘controlling and coercive’ and Beal had referred to reaching ‘breaking point’ in her journal.
‘Whatever the nature of whatever she had put up with over the years there was nothing to suggest she fought back or there was any aggression from her.’
Police officers who searched the home found a bloodstained mattress in the basement
Police dug up the garden in Northampton and uncovered Nick Billingham’s mummified remains wrapped in sheeting in a makeshift grave filled with compost and Cotswold Stone
He said Beal had said in her journals that she feared being physically harmed by Mr Billingham.
Mr Wheeler said: ‘The purpose for examining Mr Billingham’s conduct is not intended simply to speak ill of the dead or be disrespectful for him or his family but an examination of the evidence to properly explain the nature of the relationship between Ms Beal and Mr Billingham.
‘To say that what happened was out of character does not begin to do it justice.’
He said Beal head been ‘provoked’ into murdering Mr Billingham by the long term stress he caused her.
Beal accused him in her journals of sexually assaulting another person.
She had rung the Samaritans in early 2021 asking if she should report her partner to the police, the court heard.
He was ‘highly manipulative’ after she accused him of sexually assaulting another person, Mr Wheeler said.
In her basis of plea Beal said Mr Billigham would call her ‘old, washed out and fat’ and would ask her why she was wearing make up.
Disturbing photos show the makeshift grave where Beal buried her partner
The back garden of the property in Northampton where Nick Billingham was buried
She said she found it difficult when Mr Billingham left her for other women and had affairs but he had persuaded her he had changed.
But she said after she bought her house things ‘quickly deteriorated’.
She said that when she complained to him about how he treated her he replied ‘Well, I don’t hit you.’
Mr Wheeler said: ‘She was a person who had always been spoken about in glowing terms but everyone who knew her both professionally and socially and a fantastic teacher placed as a consequence with the most challenging children- an environment she loved and she herself was loved in equal measure.’
He said he did not accept that Beal’s planning for the killing was ‘significant’.
The barrister said that when Beal intended to end her own life in Cumbria she intended her journals and therefore Mr Billingham’s body to be found.
He said Beal had suffered from recurrent depression and other mental health issues for many years.
Beal appeared in the dock wearing glasses, a black dress, floral cardigan and a colourful beaded bracelet.
The teacher, was smoking up to ten joints of cannabis a day before the killing and then returned to work behaving completely normally and took pupils on a school trip to London.
Police specialist search teams including a cadaver dog were later deployed to the home and Mr Billingham’s body was found after four days of digging.
In her journal Beal, who worked at the Eastfield Academy in Northampton, wrote about how she suspected he was having an affair with the woman whose house he was renovating and how she plotted the killing as her alter ego ‘Tulip 22’.
Keen Manchester United supporter Mr Billingham had affairs before and moved out of the home, but the couple had reconciled.
This is a breaking news story, more to follow
