A primary school teacher has admitting murdering her boyfriend and burying his body in their back garden. Fiona Beal, 50, pleaded guilty in the middle of her trial for killing Nicholas Billingham, 42, at the Old Bailey.
Beal was accused of stabbing her partner to death “in cold blood” before burying him, after his partly mummified remains were found four months after he was last seen.
She had initially pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter by reason of of a loss of control, but denied murdering Mr Billingham between October 30 and November 10 2021.
A jury at the Old Bailey heard on Friday that she had changed her plea.
The teacher, of Moore Street, Northampton, was arrested in March 2022 after police discovered the body.
Forensic officers and specialist search teams were deployed to the address before the discovery was made. The court heard that her actions were revealed through journal entries discovered by police.
Last week, prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told jurors that Beal, “a high-functioning professional”, messaged several people on November 1, 2021 – and in the days after – that she and Mr Billingham had contracted Covid-19 and needed to isolate.
The prosecutor called the narrative “sustained and dishonest” and told jurors there is “no evidence” that Beal took a Covid test.
The court heard similar messages were sent from Mr Billingham’s phone from November 2.
Mr Davies told jurors the messages from Mr Billingham’s phone were Beal “pretending to be him” in a move that was “as heartless as it was self-serving”.
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