Primary school teacher pretended she had Covid after killing boyfriend to use fake isolation time to bury body in garden

22 April 2024, 18:28

A primary school teacher who stabbed her boyfriend in the neck in a 'chilling domestic execution' told her friends she had Covid and used her fake isolation time to bury him in their garden, a court has heard.

Fiona Beal, 50, admitted to killing boyfriend Nicholas Billingham, 42, as she pleaded guilty to manslaughter. She lured him to their bedroom for sex before knifing him in the neck while he was tied to their bed, the court heard.

Mr Billingham's remains were discovered four-and-a-half months after he was last seen on November 1, 2021, the Old Bailey was told.

Beal had planned the murder and purchased a knife to stab him with, and plotted the killing in her diaries, which were found by police.

The teacher told her friends they had tested positive for Covid-19 and used the pretend isolation time to bury him in the garden at their Nottingham home, the court heard.

She also used Mr Billingham's phone, jurors were told, to message friends and relatives pretending he was alive and moved in with another woman.

Beal admits manslaughter, claiming "loss of control" but denies murder.

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"There is no dispute that she killed Nick Billingham, concealed his body where it was found and acted alone throughout. There is no dispute that she intended to kill him," prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told the trial.

"She has accepted that she is guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter. She has pleaded guilty to that offence. She does not accept she is guilty of murder. Her defence is based on a so-called partial defence to murder."

Beal was arrested in March 2022 after forensic officers and specialist search teams were deployed to an address in Northampton, where they discovered Mr Billingham's body.

She had messaged several people on 1 November 2021 saying that she and her partner had contracted Covid and needed to isolate.

Similar messages had also been sent from Mr Billingham's phone, the court heard.

On November 8, Beal later messaged her sisters that she and Mr Billingham had split up, claiming in one message that he had left because of an affair he had with another woman.

The prosecution told the court the claim that he had an affair was "completely false".Beal returned to work "fully discharging her considerable responsibilities as a teacher to Year 6 pupils" and even received a "sympathetic response" from those who had heard about her break-up.

Mr Davies told jurors the messages from Mr Billingham's phone was Beal "pretending to be him" in a move that was "as heartless as it was self-serving"

The court was told that the primary school teacher had confessed to the killing by writing in her journal, which was later found by police.

Beal, who was described in court as a "high-functioning professional", had purchased a forged handle utility knife just days before, according to the prosecution.

She had also been in possession of a chisel and cable ties.

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Mr Davies said of the journals police found: "They certainly do contain some unambiguously clear declarations of what she had done. These parts were not just her truth, but the truth. What was this?

"The short answer is that she had planned to, and had, killed him in cold blood. She had purchased a forged handled utility knife in the days before. She had a chisel and cable ties.

"Promising sex after a bath, she stabbed him in the neck when he was wearing a sleep mask and was probably cabled-tied on their bed."

He continued: "Stated shortly, in all these documents Fiona Beal introduces themes of her having been controlled and manipulated in the relationship; of her insecurities having been exaggerated rather than helped by his attitude; of unpleasant things he had done…and this explaining why she killed him as she did.

"She introduces her insight into her own split personality, and an alter ego" i.e. her "second self" she calls Tulip 22, who is capable of wholly different and darker conduct than her public persona of committed teacher."

One entry also said: "Still my actions haunt me. I sometimes have to catch myself and remember what I did and then remember my cover story - neither seem convincing".

Beal later wrapped her dead partner up, dragged him down the stairs and buried him in the garden.

The trial continues.