Northampton primary school teacher jailed for life for killing partner and burying in garden | Leicestershire Live

A primary school teacher has been jailed for life with at least 20 years behind bars for murdering her partner, who she stabbed to death and then buried in their garden in Northampton.

Fiona Beal, 50, confessed to killing Nicholas Billingham, 42, whose partially mummified body was found four and a half months after he was last seen alive on November 1, 2021.

Beal pleaded guilty in April during a retrial at the Old Bailey; this followed the collapse of her original trial at Northampton Crown Court on the 64th day.

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Judge Mark Lucraft KC handed Beal a life sentence at the end of a two-day hearing, saying: “After moving and burying the body in the garden, you then lied to his mother, numerous friends, all your family and your own about done and where he was”.

As she was led from the courtroom, Beal kept her head down.

Following the sentencing, Mr Billingham’s mother Yvonne Valentine expressed her anguish outside court in a statement which was read aloud, saying: “(Beal) has demonstrated extraordinary evil.”

She condemned Beal’s actions, revealing: “Behind her facade as a kindly school teacher, she was secretly planning Nick’s cold-blooded murder.”

Valentine went on to describe how Beal went to extreme lengths to hide her body, stating, “Once the deed was done, she did her best to hide his body by throwing it in a makeshift grave like the trash before going on with their lives as it were. nothing happened”.

The grieving mother also recounted the chilling memory of Christmas drinking with Beal on December 23, 2021, unaware she was just steps away from her son’s hidden remains.

“Imagine how, reflecting, the revulsion we feel… when invited to her home for a drink, emotionless, Beal just sat looking at me, the mother of the man whose body she dumped and buried at a few steps away. “

The judge, during his sentencing remarks, labeled it a “callous act” by Beal, “dressed up as a casual chat and pre-Christmas drink”.

He also said: “It was lie after lie.”

The mother characterized Beal as “pure evil” and a “monster.”

Mrs Valentine displayed a photograph of her son as her statement was read out by Constable Kim McHugh, family liaison officer.

During the sentencing hearing, prosecutor Hugh Davies KC recited a letter Billingham had written to Beal following an affair in their 17-year relationship.

In the letter, Mr Billingham admitted his mistakes and described Beal as “the most beautiful woman in the world”, vowing never to “let her go” again and expressing his love for her “with all my heart”.

On the day he died, Mr Billingham had been working on a house renovation before returning to the Northampton home he shared with Beal.

That evening she killed him in what Mr Davies described as a “carefully planned domestic execution”.

Beal stabbed him in the neck and dumped his body at the side of their house as “construction waste”, according to Mr Davies.

She hid her actions with a made up story that they had covid and needed to isolate her.

Messages were sent from Mr Billingham’s phone on November 2, with Beal impersonating him.

On November 8, Beal sent a message to her sisters claiming she and Mr Billingham had broken up, with one message suggesting he had left because of an affair with another woman.

Upon her return to work, colleagues who knew about the alleged split offered their sympathies.

The court heard Beal’s mental health began to decline in late February 2022.

In a diary entry dated February 12, she wrote: “I’m not a total monster. I know what I did.”

The following month, she rented a cottage in Cumbria and sent messages to family members raising concerns for her welfare, prompting them to request a police welfare check.

Inside the cabin, police discovered Beal’s journals, which included a confession about the murder.

They also found references to her having a split personality and an alter ego they named Tulip 22.

She wrote: “Smoked all day. I took a bath, left the water in. He pushed for sex. I encouraged the bath with the sex stimulant afterwards.”

“While he was in the bathroom I kept the knife in his robe pocket and then I had it in the bedside drawer.”

“I also brought a chisel, a garbage bag and cable ties. I made him wear an eye mask.”

She continued: “My last words to him when he asked why he wasn’t going to do to (another woman) what he did to me.”

The court heard that Mr Billingham’s diaries sparked a police investigation, which quickly established that he had not been seen or contacted by phone since the afternoon of November 1, 2021.

Beal was arrested in March 2022 after his body was found.

On March 16, police visited her home but found nothing unusual.

However, the next day, officers discovered a blood-stained mattress in the basement and, upon returning on March 19, found more evidence.

Mr Billingham’s mummified body was found buried under makeshift layers of sheets and concrete.

Despite the murder and subsequent cover-up, she continued to “provide high-quality teaching to Year 6 pupils as if nothing had happened”, according to Mr Davies.

Andrew Wheeler KC, defending, told the court Beal “had the courage” to plead guilty to murder following a change in evidence.

He said Mr Billingham’s behavior towards Beal was “relevant” to the crime and there was a series of events leading up to “something that was never intended” to attack.

Following sentencing, Detective Sergeant Spencer Bailey, the lead deputy investigating officer in the case, described Billingham as a hard-working man who died at Beal’s “merciless hands”.

“Eventually, all the pressures of her guilt overwhelmed her,” he said. “The diary, outlining what the jury was told was her gruesome execution of Nick, means there was never any doubt she killed him.”

Andrew Baxter, of the Crown Prosecution Service, noted: “(Beal) exploited a narrative that she was the victim of abuse by her long-term partner, but instead of leaving the relationship she killed him in a planned way , cold. -bloody execution when he thought he was safe with his partner.”

The original trial was thrown out last June after it emerged that a key defense witness was actually a court custodial officer who had been responsible for Beal’s welfare checks while she was held in the cells.

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