A primary school The teacher stabbed her unfaithful boyfriend to death deliberately and hid his body in the garden while lying that they were sick and needed to stay away from others, a court was told. Covid and needed to self-isolate, a court heard.
Fiona Beal, 50, admits she killed her 42-year-old boyfriend Nicholas Billingham, whose partly mummified remains were found four-and-a-half months after he was last seen.
She has admitted to causing his death due to losing control but is being tried at the Old Bailey for being accused of killing Mr Billingham between October 30 and November 10, 2021.
After getting rid of his body, jurors were told that the ‘highly capable and highly respected teacher’ spent months using his phone to message his friends and relatives pretending he was still alive.
Beal messaged several people on November 1, 2021 – and in the days after – that she and Mr Billingham had contracted Covid-19 and needed to isolate, the court was told.
Hugh Davies KC, prosecuting, called the Covid narrative ‘sustained and dishonest’ and told jurors there is ‘no evidence’ that Beal took a PCR test.
The court heard similar messages were sent from Mr Billingham’s phone from November 2.
On November 8, Beal was said to have sent messages to her sisters that she and Mr Billingham had split up, with one message referencing he left because he had had an affair with another woman.
Mr Davies said the narrative that Mr Billingham had run off with another woman was also ‘completely false’.
But jurors heard Mr Billingham appeared to have cheated on Beal previously.
Beal returned to work ‘fully discharging her considerable responsibilities as a teacher to Year 6 pupils’ and receiving a ‘sympathetic response’ from people who had heard about her break-up.
But the court heard her mental health started to deteriorate in late February 2022.
In March of that year, she rented a cabin for herself in Cumbria and sent messages to family members which gave them cause for concern over her wellbeing.
The prosecutor said they were so worried they called the police to check up on her.
In the cabin, police found journals ‘written in her hand’ that showed ‘a wholly different side to her personality’.
Mr Davies said: ‘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.’
The prosecutor 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 shares her understanding of her own divided personality, and a second self – called Tulip 22 – that can behave very differently and darker than her public persona as a dedicated teacher.
Jurors were told that in one entry she wrote: ‘I am still troubled by my actions. Sometimes I have to remind myself of what I did and then remember my cover story, but neither seem convincing.’
Another entry described her planning for the attack, with Beal writing: ‘It was more difficult than I expected. Hiding a body was terrible. Moving a body is much harder than it looks on TV.’
The journals sparked a police investigation, which quickly established that Mr Billingham had not been seen or talked to by phone since the afternoon of November 1, 2021, the court heard.
‘By creating and maintaining a dishonest story to everyone she communicated with about isolating for Covid, Fiona Beal had planned and made sure she had the house to herself for at least 10 days after the killing,’ Mr Davies told jurors.
‘During this time, she bought multiple items to help her get rid of his body.
‘Acting alone, she wrapped her deceased partner and dragged him down the stairs, destroying the banister rails upstairs in the process. He was 5ft 11in and weighed approximately 14 stone – even when recovered months later.
‘She buried him in the side return of her garden.’
‘The police first visited Moore Street on March 16, 2022, but initially found nothing suspicious.
‘They came back on March 17 and found items, including a mattress in the cellar, which, when moved, was revealed to be heavily stained with blood. On March 19, they returned and found more.’
Mr Davies described how Mr Billingham’s ‘grave’ was made of concrete she had mixed and a makeshift coffin made of breeze blocks, timber, and sheets.
He referred to it as a ‘major project’ that required planning.
‘Planning, executing, deceiving: a consistent pattern,’ Mr Davies remarked.
Beal, from Northampton, acknowledges that she caused the death of her 42-year-old boyfriend Nicholas Billingham, but denies murder.
Mr Davies informed the jurors: ‘There is no disagreement that she killed Nick Billingham, concealed his body, and acted alone throughout. There is no disagreement that she intended to kill him.
‘She has admitted that she is guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter. She has pleaded guilty to that crime. She does not admit to being guilty of murder. Her defense is based on a so-called partial defense to murder.’
The trial is ongoing.
