He scouted Willoughby’s home address in advance of a potential home invasion and searched for abandoned buildings where he could “keep” the former This Morning presenter, the prosecution told jurors.
Officers stormed Plumb’s flat on October 4 last year after he unwittingly revealed his plot to an American undercover officer online.
Gavin Plumb’s mugshot was released by Essex police after his conviction.Credit: Essex Police
Detectives examining his phone and devices discovered “vast” amounts of images of women – 10,322 of which were of Willoughby.
So vast was the amount of material that officers were only able to analyse around 10 per cent, amounting to “more than tens of thousands of images”, Detective Constable William Belsham, of Essex Police, told jurors.
Plumb, a father of two, was also found to have made web searches including “how to meet people who plan to kidnap celebs” and “what does it feel like to be raped” in 2021.
In “sexualised” messages on WhatsApp, Wickr and Kik between Plumb and a man called Marc, the pair exchanged 57 images of Willoughby across 46 WhatsApp messages between Jan 12 and Jan 19 2022. Nine of these images were “deepfake pornography”, Alison Morgan KC, prosecuting, said.
Jurors heard how Plumb had sent voice notes detailing his plan to hold Willoughby at his home, which he had rigged with CCTV cameras.
As part of his preparations for the attack, he ordered bottles of Chloroform from a homeopathy website, which he claimed were to clean a stain on the floor.
Plumb’s violence against women began in 2006, when he was given a 12-month suspended sentence after attempting to force two stewardesses off a train using a fake gun and a threatening note on two separate occasions.
He was later jailed for 32 months after an attack on two teenage girls in 2008, in which he threatened them with a “box-cutter/Stanley knife-type instrument”.
During her closing speech, Morgan said Plumb, who used the username “Big Bear” online, went to “great lengths to suggest to other people it was not fantasy”.
Following the guilty verdicts, Detective Chief Inspector Greg Wood, Essex Police’s senior investigating officer, said Plumb was a “dangerous, predatory individual”.
He continued: “He was not just simply obsessed with Holly Willoughby, he meticulously and carefully planned, over a number of years, to carry out a depraved and violent attack, in which he plotted to deprive her of her liberty and ultimately her life.“His claims in court that he was a ‘fantasist’ are simply not true and were evidenced by the extent with which he plotted with others to carry out his wicked plan.”
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service, said that Plumb had “plotted unspeakable violence against one of the nation’s most familiar faces”.
“The chilling details of his plans were laid bare with the help of an undercover officer from the US who alerted the FBI to the threat, and the seriousness of Plumb’s scheme was exposed when the prosecution successfully applied to tell the jury about Plumb’s previous convictions.
“I hope his conviction brings some comfort to Holly Willoughby and her family, and shows others that the Crown Prosecution Service will always seek the strongest possible charges against those who plot violence against women.”
The Telegraph, London
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