'I'm not a monster': Self-justifying plea of killer teacher who brutally ... trends now

Lying on the bed, his eyes covered with a sleep mask, his hands bound with cable ties, Nicholas Billingham never stood a chance.

He was expecting sex with his partner of 17 years. What he got instead was a knife plunged into the base of his neck with such force and accuracy that it almost instantly severed his jugular vein.

Fiona Beal, the mother of his child, had hit her target.

'Left to right,' she had coached herself ahead of the attack, concealing the weapon in her dressing gown. 'Down, slight right…left to right, down, slight right.'

Despite the wound's severity, 42-year-old Mr Billingham did not die instantly.

And, in the minute that medics say he would have had left to live, Beal claimed in her journal that her partner had found the strength to ask one question: 'Why?'

It is a question that went to the very heart of this deeply troubling case.

Why did Beal - a mother and primary school teacher with no criminal record - act as she did on that November night in 2021?

Because there was never any dispute that 50-year-old Beal killed Mr Billingham. After all, she admitted it.

What two separate juries would be asked to decide was what motivated the killing – was it murder or manslaughter?

Was this a 'broken' woman driven to kill a controlling, abusive, serial love cheat?

'Everyone has a breaking point, a button that can never go back again,' Beal would subsequently write, referring to how her partner had apparently bullied her the day before she killed him.

Or was this a woman, as the prosecution put it, of 'cunning, cruel, deceptive and devious nature?'

The lawyers claimed Beal killed out of revenge, believing her partner was having yet another affair. And that not only had she meticulously planned the murder, she had also worked out how to get away with it.

In the days and weeks that followed the bloody act, Beal successfully convinced colleagues, friends and family that her partner had simply run off with another woman. She even wrote messages on his phone and sent them to his elderly mother.

Meanwhile Beal got on with her life, attending a Christmas party, using his phone to view online pornography and changing her council tax status from double to single occupancy.

Nine days after she stabbed him to death, she had the wherewithal to use his credit card to renew her TV licence.

All the while, Mr Billingham's decaying corpse was lying buried in a handmade grave Beal had dug in the back garden of their Northampton home. 

His 'coffin' was made of breeze blocks, timber and sheets. On top of it was a pile of wood chippings purchased from B&Q and a plant pot placed for decorative effect.

Four months later, when she feared the game was up, Beal set about preparing the way for when she was eventually caught, writing a journal in which she detailed the abuse she claimed to have suffered at her partner's hands. She even compared her situation to that portrayed in the hit 1991 film Thelma & Louise, starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, saying she had changed from being a 'doormat' to someone who stood up for herself.

'There's a quote from Thelma & Louise that feels appropriate,' Beal wrote. 'Thelma: 'You be sweet to them, especially your wife. My husband wasn't sweet to me'.'

In the end, there was no need for a jury to sift the fact from the fiction.

Beal's first trial last summer at Northampton Crown Court collapsed after the court heard 17 weeks of evidence following an issue with a defence character witness.

Then, last week, the case re-started at the Old Bailey in London.

But today, Beal dramatically changed her plea – and admitted murder.

She will now be sentenced at the end of May with the Recorder of London, Judge Mark Lucraft, KC, telling her: 'You have this morning pleaded guilty to murder and as no doubt you have been told the sentence for murder is life imprisonment.'

This evening Mr Billingham's mother, Yvonne Valentine, accused Beal of lying about the abuse she'd claimed to have suffered.

'She never gave the impression of being mistreated or being unhappy with him,' Mrs Valentine said. 'To me, whenever I saw them they seemed like a normal couple. I didn't recognise what she was saying about him.'

She also revealed that Beal had on one occasion invited her over to their house, claiming that her son had left her - when his body was in fact buried in the garden.

'She'd said Nick had gone up to Essex,' Mrs Valentine said. 'I noticed she'd moved some furniture – it was to block access to the back garden – and when I commented on it she said, 'Oh, I'm glad you like it'. Fiona offered me a Christmas drink and I said 'Thank you'. 

'So I sat there with this drink but it always gets to me because Nick was buried in the garden just a few feet away and I didn't know he was there. I try not to think of it.'

It is clear Beal and Mr Billingham's relationship had its ups and downs. Mr Billingham was a serial cheat, as many people in his life knew.

And yet every time he strayed, Beal took him back, persuaded that he would change his ways.

For most of her life, Beal struggled with depression and anxiety. After studying English at Luton University she qualified as a teacher, and became popular with both staff and pupils. Colleagues described her as 'amazing' and 'one of the best'.

She was 30 when she met Mr Billingham in a nightclub. He was four years her junior and not long after they met, their only child was born.

Raised in Northampton, Mr Billingham had moved from job to job, firstly on a fruit and veg stall, then working in a garage and finally in a duct cleaning firm. When the pandemic hit, he was made redundant, instead picking up work as a cash-in-hand builder. While he only had a handful of friends, those who knew him described him as a hard-working man with a 'heart of gold'.

But he never endeared himself to Beal's family, to whom he was often rude and abrupt at get-togethers and Christmases. He also gambled; in the year before he was killed, he lost £25,000 on three gambling websites. It meant he struggled to pay his way.