A convicted violent offender planned to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby but was thwarted by an undercover officer based in the US, a court has heard.
Gavin Plumb, 37, was obsessed with the television presenter, Chelmsford crown court heard. He had carefully planned how to abduct her from her home, take her to his residence in Harlow, Essex, and murder her in an abandoned building, the jury was told.
Plumb has previous convictions for attempted kidnap and false imprisonment, the jury was told. He had tried to force two women off a train with a fake gun and threatening note in 2006 before attempting to tie up two teenage girls in a Woolworths stock room in 2008.
The security guard engaged in graphic and sexually motivated discussions about the planned attack online, the prosecution said.
Plumb was unaware that one of the people with whom he was communicating was an undercover police officer based in the Owatonna police department in Minnesota, who alerted UK authorities, triggering Plumb’s arrest on 4 October 2023.
Plumb has been charged with soliciting murder, encouraging or assisting the commission of kidnap, and encouraging or assisting the commission of rape. He denies all charges.
Opening the case, the prosecutor, Alison Morgan KC, told the jury: “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 and were based on an obsession with Ms Willoughby that had developed over a number of years.
“It was not just the ramblings of a fantasist,” she added.
Plumb had gathered information about Willoughby on social media and followed her activities and movements, Morgan said. But he had “real-life experience of violence towards women”, the prosecutor said.
On 14 August 2006, the court heard how the defendant approached a woman on a train and showed her a graphic and threatening note.
The court heard how two days later he attempted a similar approach with an imitation firearm but the victim refused to get off the train with him. Plumb was arrested and found to be in possession of an imitation firearm, ropes and various notes.
Two years later, in November 2008, Plumb was working at a Woolworths in Harlow, where he forced two 16-year-olds into the stock room at knife point and tied the hands of one of the girls before the other escaped and raised the alarm.
“These were real offences, committed against real women, involving this defendant threatening them and trying to control and detain them,” Morgan told the jury.