A UK security guard planned to abduct, rape and murder TV presenter Holly Willoughby before he was stopped by an undercover police officer, a British court has heard.
Gavin Plumb, 37, is alleged to have spent two years plotting Willoughby’s murder, between 2021 and 2023, and is now standing trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, the BBC reports.
The security guard has denied the charges of soliciting murder, inciting kidnap and inciting rape.
Outlining the case against Plumb, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC Plumb told the court he had an obsession with the television presenter and planned to take her to his home in Essex before killing her in an abandoned building.
Police found more than 10,000 images of Willoughby on his phone including deepfake pornography, The Guardian reported.
The security guard had also bought 400 “heavy duty” metal cable ties online.
Plumb allegedly confided in a man known as Marc online, an undercover police officer based in the US, telling him his plans for Willoughby.
In a March 2023 voice note played in court, Plumb tells Marc he will “hit it” at night when there is less traffic.
“Chloroform both of them [Ms Willoughby and her husband] that way then they can both be easily restrained,” he said.
“We’re then gonna force her to make a video saying she come with us under her own free will… and she’s fully consenting to everything we do to her – so that covers us.”
The court was also shown a video Plumb sent to the undercover officer.
The video showed a “kit of sexualised paraphernalia” laid out on a bed, including hand and ankle shackles, a rope and a ball gag, the BBC reported.
Plumb has been previously convicted on two cases of attempted kidnap and false imprisonment, the jury was told.
In 2006, he tried to force two women off a train with a fake gun and a threatening note.
Two years earlier, he tried to tie up two teenage girls in a Woolworths stock room.