Teacher ‘lured cheating partner to bed for sex, knifed him in neck and buried body in garden’
A PRIMARY school teacher fatally stabbed her partner because she believed he was cheating on her, a court heard yesterday.
Fiona Beal, 48, allegedly lured Nicholas Billingham to bed for sex before killing him and then dragged his body to the back garden to bury him.
Jurors heard she had been plotting the murder for weeks after Mr Billingham ‘spat on her and threatened her during sex’, according to a ‘chilling’ journal.
it detailed how his behaviour allegedly fuelled Beal’s ‘dark side’, an alter ego she called Tulip22 who was ‘reckless, fearless and efficient, and how she persuaded Mr Billingham to wear an eye mask before knifing him.
The court heard how the notebook read: ‘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 Year 6 teacher killed her victim and disposed of his body in November 2021 at their home in Northampton after phoning in sick with Covid, jurors were told.
Builder Mr Billingham, 42, was discovered under a mound of bark, soil and paving slabs wrapped in a bedsheet, duvet and cable ties three months after he was last seen at a business meeting.
Prosecutor Steven Perian KC said he had cheated on Beal with other women during their long-term relationship.
‘He had left the defendant on a few occasions but always returned to her and she accepted him’, he said.
‘One of the women he slept with became
‘I couldn’t let him get away with it’
pregnant and gave birth to his child.’ Mr Perian said that by the end of October 2021, Beal had resolved to kill Mr Billingham. ‘She believed he was cheating on her again’, the prosecutor said.
‘instead of leaving him, she worked out a plan on how and when to kill him, where to conceal his body, how to cover up and explain his disappearance and her own absence from work when she killed him.’
Jurors heard that the murder is likely to have taken place on November 1 in their bedroom, which was then repainted.
Later that month, Beal returned to work following her supposed isolation for Covid and told her head teacher that Mr Billingham had left her, Mr Perian said.
The court heard the teacher carried on working as normal, even going on a school trip to London.
But just weeks after visiting the capital, Beal began messaging her head teacher in March 2022 to say she was ill.
The head contacted Beal’s mother, who revealed the teacher had said she was going away on a school residential trip.
Then the head teacher reported her missing and Cumbrian police traced her to a lodge she had rented near Kendal in the Lake District. Beal reassured an officer that she just wanted some ‘ peace and quiet’ but three days later police returned after Beal sent her family a message saying: ‘i’m so sorry. i love you all very much.’
Officers found what appeared to be a suicide note before discovering Beal naked in the bath with superficial wounds to her wrists.
She was taken to the local hospital and detained under the Mental Health Act, jurors heard.
Northampton Crown Court was told police also found a notebook with a ‘chilling account of how she had planned and killed someone’ without naming that person.
Jurors were read extracts of the journal, which referred to cult 1991 film Thelma and Louise. Beal wrote: ‘There’s a quote that feels appropriate, Thelma: “You be sweet to them, especially your wife. My husband wasn’t sweet to me.’’ i ought to explain what happened to get me to this point.
‘My mental health had been deteriorating. He was f****** around again. Whenever he was cheating he would up the ante on belittling, moaning and criticising. October 2021. He spat on me and threatened me during sex. i waited for him to go to bed and got high and let Tulip22 out. i couldn’t let him get away with it.’
The notebook told how Beal realised coronavirus rules gave a ‘guaranteed ten- day isolation period from positive symptoms’.
On December 30, the court heard, Beal sent her victim’s mother a message posing as him and claiming to be seeing in the New Year in Manchester with a new woman. This, Mr Perian said, showed Beal’s ‘cunning, cruel, deceptive and devious nature’.
Mr Billingham’s body was identified through dental records and a pathologist said he died from a single stab wound to the neck, cutting the jugular vein.
Defence KC Andrew Wheeler said there was ‘no dispute’ that she killed the ‘psychologically domineering’ Mr Billingham but had not murdered him.
He told jurors: ‘What this case is really about is her state of mind. You will hear that she has struggled with her mental health.’
Beal denies murder and the trial continues.