Ian Stewart guilty of murdering children’s author Helen Bailey
Video report by ITV News Anglia's Chloe Keedy
The fiancé of children’s author Helen Bailey has been found guilty of her murder.
Ian Stewart, 56, plied his partner with sedatives before carrying out long planned killing that had money as it’s driving motive.
He then hid her body in a cesspit underneath the garage of the couple’s Royston home.
He was found guilty of murder, fraud, three counts of perverting the course of justice and preventing a lawful burial by a jury of five women and seven men at St Albans Crown Court.
Ms Bailey's brother John Bailey was in court when the verdict was ready out. He released this statement via Hertfordshire Police:
Stewart’s arrest on July 11 was the beginning of the end of a three month search for the author.
On bodycam footage shot by officers, he can be heard asking police: "Why? I don’t understand? What’s happened? Have you found Helen? … Is that why the garage door’s open?"
The jury today decided it was all part of an elaborate charade to make it look as though Helen had gone missing.
The officer in charge, Det Ch Insp Jerome Kent said Stewart was “an intelligent, charming, thoughtful individual".
Ian Stewart lied about what had happened to Helen from the moment she went missing - for three months encouraging her family and friends to believe she might still be alive.
This is the phone call he made to police to report her missing, four days after she was last seen.
The note was never found - because it didn’t exist.
Stewart had murdered Helen and killed her dog Boris, before throwing their bodies into the cesspit. He’d killed the dog to make his deception more credible.
In the weeks leading up to her murder Stewart had been secretly drugging his partner with with sedatives, so he could carry out his killing with minimal fuss.
Traces of the sleeping drug Zopiclone, which had been prescribed to Ian Stewart, were found in Helen’s body and hair.
A few hours after murdering her, Ian Stewart logged onto Helen Bailey's bank account and increased a monthly payment into his own account from £600 to £4000.
CCTV footage then shows him visiting Royston’s refuse tip that afternoon, where he disposed of a duvet he’d used either during the murder or in moving Helen’s body.
That evening Ian Stewart went to watch his son Jamie play in a bowls match, before stopping off on his way home to pick up a Chinese takeaway.
Timeline: April 11th 2016
08:16 - 10:51 Internet and phone records show that Helen Bailey was conducting searches on her iPad, sending emails and made one phone call.
10:51 Email sent to a friend shows the last known time at which Helen was alive.
12:13 Call to Helen Bailey’s mobile phone from friend goes to voicemail.
14:27 Helen Bailey's bank account was accessed, with a standing order to Ian Stewart changed from £600 to £4,000.
15:02 Ian Stewart is filmed on CCTV at the Royston Household Waste Centre, disposing of a "white bundle" and some boxes.
For three months Ian Stewart sat back and watched police conduct what he knew to be a futile search.
Officers described him as "rude, temperamental, uncooperative and dismissive" during the search for Helen.
They had difficulty persuading him take part in any formal, recorded interviews.
Officers finally found Helen’s body in a cesspit beneath the garage. The entrance had been hidden under a parked car.
It took officers four days to recover the bodies of Helen and Boris.
Stewart claimed their bodies been put there by two men called Joe and Nick in a kidnap plot gone wrong.
However, the jury saw his account for what it was - a work of fiction.
Because the children’s author never left home.