Moment mother-of-five, 43, is arrested for trying to hire dark web hitman to ... trends now
This is the moment a spurned mother-of-five is arrested for trying to hire a hitman to kill an ex-lover factory colleague who rejected her advances.
Yesterday Helen Hewlett, 43, was found guilty of soliciting the murder of Paul Belton, 50, after a brief fling turned sour.
Hewlett, from King's Lynn, Norfolk, paid Bitcoin worth more than £20,000 to a website called Online Killers Market to try and get Mr Belton murdered, saying she wanted it to look like an accident.
She denied soliciting murder, but a jury found her unanimously guilty following two days of deliberation after an 11-day trial.
The married mother-of-five was remanded in custody until sentencing on April 5, with Judge Katharine Moore warning she 'must ready herself to receive a custodial sentence.'
Paul Belton, 50, was the target of an intended hitman job solicited by his ex-colleague Helen Hewlett, who was yesterday convicted of soliciting murder at Norwich Crown Court
They also found her not guilty of stalking causing alarm or distress, but guilty of the lesser charge of stalking.
The court heard police linked her Bitcoin payments to the site where she had placed an order titled 'Job in Norfolk UK' stating: 'Need someone killed in Norfolk - vital it looks like an accident'.
During the trial, jurors were told how Hewlett and Mr Belton had flirted with each other when they were both working at the Linda McCartney vegetarian food factory in Fakenham, Norfolk.
The pair had had a brief sexual encounter in her car in the factory's overflow car park which Mr Belton who was also married with children is said to have immediately regretted.
The court heard how she became 'utterly fixated' with him and repeatedly send him emails begging to see him again, as well as nude photographs of herself, but he backed away from her attempts to start a relationship.
Mr Belton was made redundant and got a new job at the Kinnerton Confectionery factory in Fakenham which supplies chocolate products to Tesco, but she also got a job there in order to pursue him.
She called him a 'coward' for not wanting to speak to her and posted comments on Facebook, saying that he 'needs shooting in the bollocks'.
Hewlett left her job as a mixer in the 'nut' department at Kinnerton in August 2021, saying that she was quitting due to bullying by Mr Belton and his sexual harassment of women.
Management rejected her claims as 'malicious' after Mr Belton showed them emails she had sent him.
Hewlett was also suspected of making an anonymous whistleblower complaint to Tesco last April, claiming that Mr Belton had made homophobic slurs.
Bosses at the firm suspected that Hewlett had made the complaint and dismissed it after advising Mr Belton to go to the police to report he was being harassed.
The court heard how investigations had revealed that Hewlett had set up a Coinbase account to buy cryptocurrency in January last year.
She transferred £22,601 into it from her current bank accounts in 35 transactions which included paying in money, using savings, an overdraft and loans for £7,000 and £5,000 taken out with the Royal Bank of Scotland.
She placed Bitcoin worth £20,547 into a so-called escrow intermediate account linked to the website before posting the order.
Prosecutors said she used a browser called Tor to search the dark web and found the website Online Killers Market which purported to provide hitmen.
Video shows the moment Helen Hewlett, 43, was arrested by police on suspicion of soliciting murder and stalking her ex-colleague
She posted a message under the user name 'Horses5' in a forum, saying: 'Need someone killed in Norfolk - vital it looks like an accident' before exchanging messages with a member of the site called 'Marksman'.
In on the order tracked by police, Hewlett had included the Mr Belton's name, his home address, work address and a photo of him.
During the trial, the court heard the married mother-of-five admitted to police during an interview that she went on the dark web to seek 'revenge' but denied she intended to kill her ex-colleague, Belton.
During a police interview, Hewlett insisted she had not intended for the killing to go ahead but had posted on a forum 'to vent'.
She stated that she still controlled the funds in the escrow account and believed no one else had access, adding: 'You have to give your OK for someone to be done.'
Det Sgt Mark Stratford, of the Eastern Region
