Inside the courtroom: The lewd, lurid, ludicrous details from Holly Willoughby kidnap plotter trial

Over the course of a two-week trial, the disturbing details have been laid bare of a security guard's plot to kidnap, rape and murder the TV presenter Holly Willoughby. HANNAH PETTIFER, who was in court to cover the trial for ITV News Anglia, reflects on a case at times as absurd as it was shocking.

Sitting just a few feet away from an individual who holds such extreme fantasies of committing violence against women, was never going to be easy.

Over the course of the past two weeks Gavin Plumb repeated that these fantasies were just that - pure fantasy, born out of a life spent “99.9%” of the time in online chatrooms.

But it took a jury 12 hours to find that his intent was real.

Gavin Plumb sat throughout the trial, hunched forward in the dock, appearing to listen intently to what was taking place in front of him. All we were first presented with was what he had written online, hiding behind his username of “BigBear”. It wasn’t until he took to the stand that we heard his actual voice.

Plumb said his kidnap and rape chats involving Holly Willoughby were “massively regrettable”. He felt “embarrassed and ashamed” hearing the messages being read out in court.

Speaking rapidly in a slightly high-pitch voice, I lost count of the times he said that the detailed graphic violence he had planned to inflict on the television presenter was all just “online chat”.

For two-and-a-half years Plumb had been planning to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby, who he described as his “ultimate fantasy”. At times, such was the level of violence, he even shocked those he shared his fantasies with online.

And despite this he wanted the jury to believe it was all just chat.

Much of the prosecution’s case rested on Plumb’s prior convictions. They argued it showed he didn’t live in a fantasy world; that he actually had a history of carrying out violent, terrifying attacks on women.

It was revealed that Plumb had also shared online a fantasy involving air-stewardesses. In 2007, he was given a suspended sentence for the attempted kidnap of two air-stewardesses on board the Stansted Express. In both incidents he tried to force them off the train using an imitation gun and a threatening note.

Two years later he was jailed for 32 months for false imprisonment of two 16-year-old girls from the Woolworths stockroom in Harlow.

In both cases, his defence was that he was in a toxic, abusive relationship and that he wanted to be caught because being sent to jail was “a way out”.

The derision in the voice of the prosecutor, Alison Morgan KC, was cutting. “You saw this as a way out did you?” she said. “You made it as terrifying as possible for the women you confronted.”

When police seized Plumb’s phone they found hundreds of images of Holly Willoughby. There was also a video showing the restraint kit he had bought online for what he referred to as the “home invasion” of the television presenter.

His voiceover is calm and detached on the video, describing each of the items in turn as if he were on a shopping channel.

Hundreds of online messages were also presented to the jury detailing what Plumb wanted to do to Holly Willoughby. Many were so hideously graphic, so gratuitously violent, we were not allowed to report.

In contrast to the seriousness of the chatroom messages, parts of Plumb’s plan for the “home invasion” felt ludicrous.

He planned to drive to the TV presenter’s house but had no car or licence. Public transport would have been a stretch too, as he had mentioned taking a ladder. As for the 9ft wall that surrounded the house, Plumb had said he could “jump” or “hop” over.

At the time, though, he weighed 30 stone and found walking, let alone scaling a wall, a struggle.

But it wasn’t for the jury to decide whether Plumb’s plan was viable or if he could have done it. For the three charges of soliciting murder, incitement to rape and incitement to kidnap, they had to decide if he intended to do it.

And this they did, the eight women and four men of the jury, after 12 hours and 19 minutes of deliberating.

Trials like this are never easy to cover. Journalists objectively report the facts placed in front of them, almost at a distance, but sometimes the extent of depravity being described still has the power to shock.

Plumb’s defence team described his plans as “nothing more than the ravings of an isolated individual who became obsessed with a celebrity who he would never meet.”

To see the face behind those ravings and now know the intent was there, you can't help but be affected.

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