Teacher killed boyfriend then invited his mum over while he was buried in garden
'It always gets to me because Nick was buried in the garden a few metres away and I didn’t know he was there.'
A primary school teacher murdered her partner then invited his worried mum around while his body lay buried in the back garden.
Fiona Beal, 50, brought her Old Bailey trial to a dramatic halt on Friday by changing her plea to guilty.
Jurors had heard that between October 30 and November 10, 2021, she lured Nick Billingham, 42, into the bedroom of their Northampton home promising sex before stabbing him in the neck.
She then told friends they had both tested positive for Covid so she would not be disturbed while building the makeshift grave and redecorating the house to try and hide all traces of the killing.
Shortly before Christmas in 2021, Beal invited Nick’s worried mother Yvonne Valentine around, telling her that her son had moved down to Essex to ‘start a new life’.
In fact, his body lay buried yards away from where they sat chatting. It would not be found for another three months.
Mrs Valentine said: ‘I walked into the house, into the living room, and the first thing I thought was have you had a turnaround with your furniture, it all looks different.
‘Fiona offered me a Christmas drink. I said. “Oh, thank you”.
‘So, we sat there with this drink, but then it always gets to me because Nick was buried in the garden a few metres away and I didn’t know he was there.
‘I try not to think about it too much, but when I do I just, it’s so draining. It’s just horrible.’
Beal, from Northampton, had initially pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter by reason of a loss of control, but denied murdering Mr Billingham.
After she changed her plea on Friday, Judge Mark Lucraft told her: ‘You have this morning pleaded guilty to murder, which as you have no doubt been told, carries a sentence of life imprisonment.’
He confirmed he will determine the minimum term at a two-day sentencing hearing starting on May 29.
As the jury left the courtroom, a tearful Beal wiped her eyes with a tissue.
Beal spent months using her partner’s phone to message his friends and his mother pretending to be him saying he had run off with a made up woman called ‘Faye’.
On November 8, jurors heard that Beal sent messages to her sisters saying she and Mr Billingham had split up, with one message saying he left because he had had an affair with another woman.
But her actions were revealed through journal entries discovered by police.
Prosecutor Hugh Davies KC 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 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.’
Jurors heard one entry 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.’
Another detailed her planning for the attack, with Beal writing: ‘It was harder than I thought it would be. Hiding a body was bad. Moving a body is much more difficult than it looks on TV.’
The original murder trial collapsed after more than four months when it emerged that a key defence witness was a court custody officer who had conducted welfare checks on Beal in the cells.
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