A security guard who plotted to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby had 10,000 images of her on his phone and had come to attention of a US undercover cop after posting messages in an ‘abduct lovers’ online group, a court has heard.
Gavin Plumb is accused of hatching a plan to use a chloroform restraint kit to overpower the star before taking her to a ‘dungeon’ where her ‘screams can’t be heard for miles’.
But the jury heard that the 37-year-old came to the attention of an undercover police officer based within the Owatonna Police Department in Minnesota when he was posting in an online group called ‘abduct lovers’.
Alison Morgan KC said the officer, using the name David Nelson, was monitoring exchanges on the group focused in particular on discussions relating to murder for hire, kidnapping, abduction, rape and human trafficking.
She told Chelmsford Crown Court that Plumb, using the identity ‘BigBear’, posted a photo of Holly Willoughby – though the officer did not initially know who she was.
Ms Morgan said Plumb ‘posted photographs of a white female – the officer in the US didn’t recognise who this white female was – female with blonde hair, standing in front of a prize wheel.
Gavin Plumb is accused of hatching a plan to use a chloroform restraint kit to overpower the star before taking her to a ‘dungeon’ where her ‘screams can’t be heard for miles’
A court heard that the 37-year-old described it as his ‘ultimately fantasy’ to kidnap Ms Willoughby, adding: ‘Fantasy isn’t enough any more. I want the real thing’
‘It was obviously a picture of Holly Willoughby, not immediately recognised by the undercover officer.’
She said the he said he had a ‘load of info on her – I know when she does and don’t have security and that she doesn’t have CCTV at home. What time she gets up in the morning’.
Obsessed Plumb was found to have 10,322 images of Holly Willoughby in a folder called ‘Holly’ on his mobile phone, according to Police.
Ms Morgan told Chelmsford Crown Court: ‘There was a folder in fact on the defendant’s telephone which was called ‘Holly’ and it contained 10,322 images of Holly Willoughby.’
Jurors were told Plumb had unwittingly hatched ‘graphic’ plans to kidnap, rape and murder Ms Willoughby with the undercover officer from the US.
As Metropolitan Police officers arrested the ‘shocked’ defendant at his home, and explained to him he was accused of a conspiracy to kidnap Ms Willoughby, Plumb replied: ‘I’m not gonna lie, she is a fantasy of mine’.
Ms Morgan said Plumb unwittingly spoke with an undercover police officer to ‘discuss the rules, the sex rules in raping, and then when the officer asks what’s going to happen when you’re done the defendant says slit her throat, clear her out and dispose of it’.
She also said that in his online discussions, he spoke of how Ms Willoughby would be killed and ‘disposed’ of.
In his exchanges with the officer, who went by the name David Nelson, Plumb said: ‘I know when she does and don’t have security and that she doesn’t have CCTV at home – what time she gets up in the morning.’
Gavin Plumb is accused of hatching a plot to kidnap, rape and solicit the murder of the star, and allegedly considered trying to get employment as her security guard to get close to her
He also told the officer, from the Owatonna Police Department in Minnesota, that he was ‘definitely serious’ about his plans.
Chelmsford Crown Court was told Plumb discussed with others online about how Ms Willoughby’s desire to avoid him going near her children would be an ‘extra reason for her to be obedient’.
The prosecutor told jurors that Plumb said: ‘So we’ll use the chloroform on her and her husband. Take her, leave him. Take her to where she’s being kept and enjoy her.’
Voice messages were played to a jury which were sent to a man named Marc in which Plumb said he would ‘pick out outfits for her we like’ and spoke about the use of chloroform.
One voice message said: ‘We’re then going to force her to make a video that she came with us under her own free will… so that covers us.’
The court heard the defendant boasted of his previous convictions and jail time for false imprisonment and attempted kidnap to ‘bolster his credibility’.
Prosecutors allege that his past convictions – including tying a 16-year-old girl’s hands behind her back with rope and tape, and the attempted kidnap of women on a train with the threat of a gun – showed he knew ‘what it would take to terrify and overpower a woman’.
Ms Willoughby has waived her right to anonymity in connection with an accusation against Plumb of assisting or encouraging rape.
Alleged victims of sex offences or targets of sex offence conspiracies have a right to automatic anonymity for life from the moment an allegation is made by them or anyone else.
The plans allegedly involved attempting to ‘ambush’ the presenter at her family home and Plumb is accused of discussing taking time off work to work on the plot.
The court heard that Plumb had accumulated ‘many hundreds’ of images of Ms Willoughby that he had accessed online, and his ‘obsessive behaviour extended to other celebrities and to women who lived in his local area’.
Jurors were also told he had shared ‘deepfake pornography images of Holly Willoughby’ online with Marc, which were ‘highly sexualised’.
Voice messages were played to a jury which were sent to a man named Marc in which Plumb said he would ‘pick out outfits for her we like’ and spoke about the use of chloroform
Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said Plumb told Marc: ‘Restraining and getting her has been my ultimate fantasy for way too long.
‘I’m now at the point that fantasy isn’t enough any more. I want the real thing.’
Plumb is charged with soliciting a man, David Nelson, to commit murder, and encouraging or assisting kidnap and rape.
The defendant is alleged to have conspired online with the man he knew as Mr Nelson, who was to travel to the UK from the US, and created a ‘detailed plan’ to carry out the offences.
Ms Morgan told the court that Plumb had purchased items such as metal cable ties, which would ‘assist him in carrying out the attack’.
She said the defendant ‘commented on the appearance of women in a degrading manner’.
In her opening remarks to the jury on Monday, she said: ‘In October 2023, this defendant, Gavin Plumb, engaged in an online discussion with a person he believed to be called David Nelson.
‘In that discussion, the defendant explained his plans to kidnap, rape and murder the celebrity Holly Willoughby.
‘The defendant set out his plans and sought to encourage the other person to commit those offences with him.
‘The defendant’s plans as to what he would do to Holly Willoughby were graphic and were obviously sexually motivated.
‘They were real to him, members of the jury, and were based on an obsession with Holly Willoughby that had developed over a number of years.’
Outlining how Plumb came to be arrested, Ms Morgan said: ‘What the defendant did not know then was that the person that he was communicating with online was an undercover police officer based in the USA and not, in fact, a like-minded abductor.
‘The defendant’s planning of the offences was then interrupted and he was arrested by the police.
‘The prosecution’s case is that the online discussions that this defendant had revealed his real intentions to carry out a plot to kidnap Holly Willoughby from her family home, to take her to a location where she would be raped repeatedly, before the defendant then intended to kill her.
Ms Willoughby, 43, announced in October last year that she was stepping down from This Morning after 14 years on the ITV show
‘It was not just the ramblings of a fantasist.
‘The defendant had carefully planned what he would do and how he would do it, purchasing items that would assist him in carrying out that attack.’
Ms Morgan added: ‘It’s likely in this trial he will say this is all just fantasy.
‘You will consider, is this the talk of a fantasist or is this someone who expresses himself with such dark depravity that it is clear that he meant what he said?’
Ms Willoughby, 43, announced in October last year that she was stepping down from This Morning after 14 years on the ITV show.
She said in a social media post at the time that she felt she had ‘to make this decision for me and my family’.
The presenter has since hosted Dancing On Ice 2024 and will present a Netflix show, to be released next year, in which adventurer Bear Grylls hunts down celebrities in the jungle.
Plumb, of Harlow, Essex, denies all the charges.
The trial, which is expected to last for two weeks, continues.