Guard accused of Holly Willoughby kidnap plot tells jury he attacked women to escape ‘toxic relationship’

Gavin Plumb denies charges over an alleged plot to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby (Sourced)

A security guard accused of plotting to kidnap, rape and murder TV star Holly Willoughby told a court he attacked women to escape his “toxic relationship” before his weight ballooned to 35 stone.

Gavin Plumb, 37, revealed while giving evidence to Chelmsford Crown Court he first started struggling with his weight at age 13 which impacted his confidence.

“Especially being 13 you get all kinds…you are meant to be really active and not being to do stuff like that really affects you,” he told the jury.

“It was something that just constantly put me down personally. As I wasn’t able to go and do what my friends were doing.”

Under questioning from defence counsel Sasha Wass KC, he said he had trouble forming relationships in his teenage years, adding he was regularly in the “friend zone” and “nothing more”.

His first serious relationship started at age 18 but this soon became toxic, he claimed.

“It was extremely toxic. It was constant arguments there was constant…the things that a couple were doing as in having a normal relationship kind of thing – we wasn’t – we were constantly arguing, we were constantly at each other,” he told the jury.

He said the impact on him was “massive”, adding: “I don’t want to be in a relationship with other people.

“I was constantly put down, I was constantly told I’m not good enough, she can do much better than me.”

When questioned about his previous conviction for attempting to kidnap two women on the Stansted Express in 2006, he alleged he carried it out to get himself incarcerated.

“For me it was my only option - being in the relationship that I was in, it was toxic, I was extremely young, I needed to find a way out,” he said.

He admitted he had a “stewardess fantasy” but insisted that did not play a part in the attack. He also told the court he “was not aware” he was carrying an imitation firearm until the police arrested him.

The court previously heard Plumb was handed a 12-month suspended sentence for the 2006 attack. But he was later jailed for 32 months for another attack on two teenage girls in 2008, in which he threatened them with a “box-cutter/Stanley knife-type instrument”.

He told Ms Wass KC that he also carried out the second attack to escape his relationship.

He added: “It was exactly the same. I just needed a way out of the relationship, knowing full well that it worked the last time.”

The prosecution claims it was Plumb’s “ultimate fantasy” to target Ms Willoughby, who has waived her right to anonymity.

The shopping centre security guard is accused of soliciting the undercover US officer to join a plot to commit murder, and incitement to kidnap and rape the TV personality. Plumb, of Harlow in Essex, denies all the charges.

The trial, scheduled to last two weeks, continues.

More to follow...