Short version
- Gavin Plumb was convicted of plotting the kidnapping, rape and murder of TV personality Holly Willoughby.
- The plan was uncovered by an American undercover agent, and was then shared with British authorities.
- Plumb had more than 10,000 images of Willoughby and AI-generated pornography on his phone.
- Holly Willoughby expresses her deep gratitude to the police for averting a direct threat.
“What the hell is going on,” Gavin Plumb screamed when police entered his home on October 4 last year. You can see the arrest at the top of this case.
The 37-year-old man is wearing only trousers and is handcuffed. A police officer tells him he is being arrested on suspicion of planning a kidnapping. He asks who.
“Holly Willoughby. That’s the charge,” the police officer replies.
Plumb looks a little puzzled, before saying:
– I'm not going to lie, it's one of my fantasies. It's probably one of many men's fantasies, isn't it?
Earlier in the day, TV pundit Willoughby, 43, said “Thank you today and see you tomorrow” as she ended ITV's This Morning as usual.
While Willoughby was presenting on television, the convicted man was talking about his plans in an online group.
What he didn't know was that one of the people he was talking to was a police officer. cover.
Obsession
Gavin Plumb, 37, was recently convicted of plotting to kidnap, rape and murder Willoughby.
The verdict is scheduled for July 12.
Her name was on top of a handwritten note listing 136 celebrities. Sky News reported that he kept it in a drawer next to his bed.
Plumb was not obsessed with the TV file. Police found more than 10,000 pictures of her on his phone, including Artificial intelligence was created Pornography.
He was credited as a security guard, and reportedly spoke in letters about trying to get a job as her bodyguard.
Plumb was arrested when he talked online about his violent and brutal plans with a police officer in the United States. under the coverThe information was shared with the British authorities.
– dangerous man
Chelmsford County Court in Essex heard the man's detailed plans for how he would abduct Willoughby from the home she shared with her husband Dan Baldwin, take her to his home in Essex, repeatedly rape her and murder her.
Gavin Plumb is a dangerous man who planned unspeakable violence against one of the country's most famous faces, prosecutor Nicola Rice says for the prosecution.
“Women should not be made to feel unsafe when going about their normal lives or in their homes,” said Willoughby, a British TV profiler. “I will be forever grateful to the police officer who recognised the immediate threat, and to the Metropolitan and Essex Police for their swift response.”
I talked to others
The plans were presented to the court, among other things, through recordings that Plumb sent to a potential accomplice.
– The plan is to strike at night, with less traffic on the road, etc. Uses Chloroform On each of them, and then you can easily tie them together. “So we picked out the clothes that we liked, and obviously we brought her and the costumes, and then we're off,” Plumb said in one recording. Sky News.
In another recording, he said he wanted to make a video in which Willoughby said she joined them of her own free will and “fully consented” to everything they did to her.
He wrote in his letters that the things he intended to do for her would have guaranteed him a chance. Death cell».
The man denied guilt, telling the court that it was just his imagination. The fact that Plumb, among other things, took time off work and went to buy a “kidnapping kit” was presented by the prosecution as evidence that the plans were real.
In court, prosecutor Alison Morgan said Plumb had spent a long time planning his plans. In conversations with others, Plumb was said to have made it clear he had been wanting to carry out the horrific attack for several years.
“My absolute fantasy,” he wrote to a supposed assistant.
Prosecutors said that although the plans were unrealistic, they showed a real intent to hijack the TV file.
– These were not just the broad ideas of an imaginative person. The accused had carefully planned what he would do and how, and had gone out to buy things he would use to carry out the attack. Attorney General Morgan said,.
brutal plans
Plumb was the moderator of a public Willoughby fan group on a messaging platform, but he was also a member of a more somber group discussing kidnappings. It was here that he was captured by the US Secret Service.
The court was also shown communications he had with others online, in what prosecutors believe was an attempt to form a group that would help kidnap Willoughby and other celebrities.
He said in the recordings that she was the original target, but he and others had “15 cells to fill.”
Plumb shared photos of Willoughby, her home, and a video of his “kidnapping kit,” which included handcuffs, ropes, and metal bars placed on his bed.
He also shared detailed, brutal plans for how to dispose of Willoughby's body.
The plans never came to fruition. But the man has shown that he can be violent towards women in the past.
Threatening women on the train
The court wrote that the court listened to the “fancy of the hostess.” Sky News And WatchmanIn August 2006, he approached a flight attendant on a flight to Stansted Airport and showed her a message containing graphic and threatening content.
– He sat across from her and stared at her, before showing her a note that said, “I have a gun. All you have to do is be quiet. Do as I say. So get up and get off with me at the next stop. Don't cry or make noise. Don't stop me from touching you because I won't hurt you,” read prosecutor Alison Morgan. In court.
Furthermore, he reportedly threatened through the note to shoot the woman, himself, and others on the train if she did not do what he said.
The victim was terrified and started crying. Morgan said others on the train came, and then the defendant tore up the letter and got off the train.
Two days later, he tried the same thing again against another flight attendant, this time equipped with a fake gun and a rope. The woman refused to leave the train with him, and the man got 12 months. the condition prison.
At a grocery store two years later, he threatened two 16-year-old girls in the back room with a wallpaper knife.
The girls were working on stocking shelves when Plumb approached them with a knife and ordered them into the back room.
Prosecutor Morgan said he pulled rope and tape from his pockets and tied one of the girls up. In court.
Meanwhile, the other escaped and was called for help. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison, according to the prosecution.
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