Gavin Plumb: ‘Fantasy would never be enough’ for man accused of Holly Willoughy kidnap, murder and rape plot
Fantasy was “never going to be enough” for the man accused of plotting to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby, the jury were told yesterday.
In her summing-up, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said Gavin Plumb, 37, “plainly gained sexual arousal” from the planning, and even looking at fake porn images of the TV presenter wasn’t sufficient.
“Fantasy was never going to be enough for him,” she told the jury of eight women and four men.
“He plainly gained sexual arousal from the planning of the attacks on real women. He is someone who had done it in real life.”
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The court has heard that security guard Plumb served time in prison after committing three offences of attempted kidnap or false imprisonment involving four women in 2006 and 2008.
Ms Morgan continued: Alleged target: Holly Willoughby “This had to be real. And from the volume of his messages and persistence of his messages, he could think of little else.”
Referring to the conversations he unwittingly had with a US undercover police officer who used the pseudonym David Nelson, Ms Morgan described it as the moment the defendant “found someone who was matching him in terms of level of commitment”.
Gavin Plumb, 36, who is a security guard at a shopping centre in Essex, had planned to assemble a 'restraint kit' at home where he had also stashed weapons, magistrates heard. Credit: Unknown/Supplied
She told the jury: “There’s an expression that tells you everything in this case. It’s the defining expression.
“His words ‘S***, it’s really happening’.
“These were the defendant’s words when he realised another person who he believed to be called David Nelson was genuinely prepared to join him in his plan to attack Holly Willoughby… ‘He didn’t say, ‘Don’t do that, I was just kidding’.
“He didn’t say, ‘This is just fantasy, you haven’t actually booked a flight, have you?’
“After years of planning, he had finally found someone who did not appear to have cold feet.”
Plumb planned to take Ms Willoughby from her home to a secluded location with a dungeon-style room where she would be repeatedly raped and then killed, the court has heard.
Ms Morgan warned the jury they should not accept the defendant’s online conversations in groups such as Abduct Lovers as “just chat” and compared the alleged plan to an inept individual attempting to co-ordinate a terrorist bomb plot.
“He commits an offence by planning such an attack, regardless of whether or not that plan is doomed to fail,” she said.
“Boring details” provided further evidence of the defendant’s intent, said the prosecutor, who gave the example of Plumb and his alleged fellow plotters discussing getting time off work to carry out the raid on Ms Willoughby’s London home.
“That’s not sexy. That’s not gratifying. That’s a real detail about what you need to happen in the planning of this,” she said.
Describing Plumb as a “prolific liar”, Ms Morgan told the jury “not to under estimate this defendant”.
Television presenter Holly Willoughby. Credit: Joel C Ryan/Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP
Referring to the name he used in the online Abduct Lovers chatroom, she added: “There’s a nasty reality to this man. Big Bear? I don’t think so.
“He shocked even those who were prepared to fantasise with him.”
Ms Morgan concluded: “Whether or not you think the plan he had put together was likely to succeed is not the question.
“That’s not the legal test you have to apply.
“What matters is whether he encouraged these offences to be committed and whether he intended or believed that they would be.”
Plumb planned to take Ms Willoughby from her home to a secluded location with a “dungeon-style” room where she would be repeatedly raped and then killed, the court has heard.
He was arrested in October last year.
Plumb, of Harlow in Essex, denies soliciting murder, incitement to rape and incitement to kidnap. The trial continues.