Teacher who murdered boyfriend and buried him in garden jailed for at least 20 years
30 May 2024, 14:42 | Updated: 30 May 2024, 16:18
A primary school teacher who murdered her boyfriend before burying him in their garden has been jailed for life.
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Fiona Beal, 50, from Northampton, stabbed Nicholas Billingham, 42, to death between October and November 2021.
She previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter before last month pleading guilty to murder.
Beal killed Mr Billingham in "cold blood", the Old Bailey heard, before burying him in their back garden.
His partly mummified remains were discovered four and a half months later.
At the end of a two-day hearing, Judge Mark Lucraft KC handed Beal a life sentence and told her: "Having moved and buried the body in the garden you then lied to his mother, numerous friends, all his family and yours as to what you had done and where he was."
The defendant had her head down as she left court.
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During the sentencing hearing, prosecutor Hugh Davies KC read out a letter Mr Billingham had written to Beal after he had an affair during their 17-year relationship.
Mr Billingham wrote that he accepted his faults and described Beal as "the most beautiful woman in the world" before promising to never "belittle" her again and declaring he loved her "with all my heart".
In a victim impact statement his mother Yvonne Valentine branded Beal "pure evil" and described having a Christmas drink together on December 23 2021, not knowing she was just feet from her son's body.
The judge described it as a "callous act" on Beal's part, "dressed up as a casual chat and a drink before Christmas" that followed "lie after lie".
On the day of his death, Mr Billingham had worked on a house renovation before returning home. Beal then killed him in a "carefully planned domestic execution", Mr Davies said.
Beal stabbed him in the neck and disposed of the body in the side return of their home like "building waste", Mr Davies said.
She then came up with a false story that they had Covid and needed to isolate, sending messages from his phone pretending to be him.
A week after she killed him, Beal sent messages to her sister saying they had split up because he had had an affair with another woman.
On her return to work, she received sympathy from those who had heard about the apparent break-up.
Beal's mental health started to deteriorate in late February 2022, the court was told.
CCTV of Fiona Beal buying items from B&Q
In a journal entry dated February 12, she wrote: "I'm not a total monster. I know what I did."
The following month, she rented a cabin in Cumbria and sent messages to family members which gave them cause for concern over her wellbeing, prompting them to call police to check on her.
In the cabin, police found Beal's journals containing a confession to the killing.
They also included reference to her having a split personality and an alter ego she called Tulip 22.
She wrote: "I had smoked all day. I had a bath, I left the water in. He had been pushing for sex. I encouraged the bath with the incentive of sex afterwards.
"While he was in the bath I kept the knife in my dressing gown pocket and then I had it in the drawer next to the bed. "I brought a chisel, bin bag and cable ties up too. I got him to wear an eye mask."
She went on: "My last words to him when he asked why was that he was not going to do to (another female) what he had done to me."
The journals triggered a police investigation, which soon established Mr Billingham had not been seen or spoken to by telephone since the afternoon of November 1 2021, the court heard.
Beal was arrested in March 2022 after police discovered his body.
Police had visited her home on March 16 but found nothing out of the ordinary.
The next day, officers found a bloodstained mattress in the basement and returned on March 19 and discovered more. Mr Billingham's mummified body had been buried in makeshift layers of sheeting and concrete.
The murder and cover-up were committed while she continued "to deliver high-quality teaching to Year 6 pupils as if nothing had happened", Mr Davies said.
Andrew Wheeler KC, defending, told the court Beal "had the courage" to plead guilty to the murder after a change in evidential circumstances.
He said the background of Mr Billingham's behaviour towards Beal was "relevant" to the murder and there were a series of events which led to "something never contemplated" - the attack.
The original trial collapsed last June when it emerged a key defence witness was a court custody officer who had conducted welfare checks on Beal in the cells.
