Mother of killer Fiona Beal’s sufferer calls her ‘pure evil’

The mother of evil primary school teacher Fiona Beal’s victim has called her ‘pure evil’ as she held a picture of ‘My Nick’ aloft outside court as the killer is jailed for life – but says ‘nothing will make up for the pain we have suffered’.

Beal, 50, lured builder Nick Billingham, 42, into the bedroom with the promise of sex before ‘executing’ him in the Northampton home they shared. 

The Year 6 teacher was jailed for life today with a minimum term of 20 years.

In a statement read out on her behalf Yvonne Valentine, Mr Billingham’s mother, said: ‘Nothing will ever make up for the pain we have suffered over the now more than two-and-half-years since, but at least we can sleep safe in the knowledge that Beal will be locked away for years during which she will have more than enough time to reflect on her actions.

‘She has demonstrated extraordinary evil. Behind her façade as a kindly schoolteacher, she was secretly planning the cold-blooded killing of Nick. 

‘Once the deed was done, she went to great lengths to conceal his body, dumping him in an impromptu grave, like rubbish, before carrying on with her life as if nothing had happened.

‘You can probably only imagine the sense of shock and devastation when we learned, in March 2022, that Nick had been taken from us more than four months earlier, four months during which myself and others close to him continued to receive messages from him as if Nick, just 42, was still alive, well, and moving on with his life. How far from the truth that was? 

‘Imagine how, on reflection, the revulsion one felt at that day in Christmas 2021 when invited to have a drink at her home. Devoid of emotion, Beal simply sat there looking at me, the mother of a man whose discarded body she had single-handedly buried just feet away. 

‘Beal is pure evil. A monster, who must now spend many years ahead of her asking why she killed my Nick: A good father, a good friend, and a much-loved son.’

Beal told friends they had tested positive for Covid so she would not be disturbed while she built a makeshift grave and repainted her home to hide the blood. 

Twelve days after the murder, on November 1, 2021, she hid Mr Billingham’s van on a side street a mile from the home and went to B&Q to purchase items for a makeshift grave.

Later that day she bought a large fleece blanket, a vibrator and a herb grinder for cannabis on his Amazon account.

Beal also repeatedly used her partner’s phone to watch pornography after the murder.

Mr Billingham’s mummified body was found four months later wrapped in sheeting in a grave on which Beal had placed a plant pot for ‘decorative effect.’

Jailing Beal for life with a minimum term of 20 years, Judge Mark Lucraft, KC, the Recorder of London, said: ‘In October 2021 you were living with Nick Billingham in Moore Street. The two of you had been in a relationship for 17 years.

‘On Monday 1 November he left home and went to work pretty much as normal.

‘By the time he returned home from work that day you had resolved to kill him.

‘It was not until March 2022 that Nick’s body was discovered and excavated from the burial site you had made in the garden of the house.

‘Having done what you did you pretended to the outside world Nick had left you and was having an affair.

‘You lied to his mother, family, friends and colleagues and even your own family, friends and colleagues about what you had done.

‘There is a wealth of evidence to demonstrate your plans to kill him and going to great lengths to hide his body and then taking steps to make sure what you had done would not be uncovered.’

Andrew Baxter from the Crown Prosecution Service said: ‘Fiona Beal’s crime and her ongoing deception shocked family members and the whole community. 

‘She exploited a narrative that she was the victim of abuse at the hands of her long-term partner, but rather than leave the relationship, she killed him in a planned, cold-blooded execution when he thought he was safe with his partner.

‘This has been a particularly distressing time for Mr Billingham’s family as they have had to come to terms with Beal’s ongoing lies, and deceit, which even included letting them visit the house when his body was hidden there. 

‘I have nothing but admiration for the dignity they have shown through these ongoing proceedings and my heart goes out to them for their loss.’

He said Beal pretended ‘everything was normal’ as she buried Mr Billingham in a ‘homemade tomb’.

He noted that Beal was ‘highly regarded’ as a teacher and had no previous convictions.

‘I accept that what you now accept you did to Nick has been a shock to all those who knew you,’ he said.

The judge said ‘some allowance’ should be given for the evidence around Mr Billingham’s behaviour but that some witnesses had said they were a happy couple.

Beal, wearing glasses, a black dress, floral cardigan and colourful beaded bracelet, kept her head bowed as she was sentenced.

Ms Valentine, who called Beal ‘pure evil’ after she invited her round for a Christmas drink pretending her son was still alive, was in court supported by other members of the family.

Judge Lucraft said Beal’s treatment of Ms Valentine was ‘callous.’

In terms of mitigation, he added that it was submitted that she had suffered from any ‘mental disorder or mental disability which lowered your degree of culpability’ and that she was provoked by prolonged stress.

He added that her accounts of amnesia has been challenged and that ‘telling instrumental lies for a defined reason, for example, promote a false defense is a well documented phenomenon’.

But he acknowledged Andrew Wheeler, KC, defending’s submissions and the reports of other experts. 

The judge continued: ‘The question is to balance the factors, particularly where the picture before the court is or may not be a complete one, because of the nature of what you say and the inability for the court to test those by any account from Nick.’

He added: ‘I have no doubt what you now accept you did to Nick has been a shock to all those who thought they knew you.’

Andrew Wheeler, KC, defending, said Beal had been ‘courageous’ for pleading guilty to murder on the third day of her second trial.

‘She has had the courage to enter a plea to murder which as the court knows happens extremely rarely.’

He said Beal cannot remember any of the details of the killing or the period after due to ‘traumatic amnesia’.

‘Ms Beal cannot remember any of the detail of the material time and expert evidence continues to support her in that regard in terms of recognised amnesia.’

He said Mr Billingham was ‘controlling and coercive’ and Beal had referred to reaching ‘breaking point’ in her journal.

‘Whatever the nature of whatever she had put up with over the years there was nothing to suggest she fought back or there was any aggression from her.’

He said Beal had said in her journals that she feared being physically harmed by Mr Billingham.

Mr Wheeler said: ‘The purpose for examining Mr Billingham’s conduct is not intended simply to speak ill of the dead or be disrespectful for him or his family but an examination of the evidence to properly explain the nature of the relationship between Ms Beal and Mr Billingham.

‘To say that what happened was out of character does not begin to do it justice.’

He said Beal head been ‘provoked’ into murdering Mr Billingham by the long term stress he caused her.

Beal accused him in her journals of sexually assaulting another person.

She had rung the Samaritans in early 2021 asking if she should report her partner to the police, the court heard.

He was ‘highly manipulative’ after she accused him of sexually assaulting another person, Mr Wheeler said.

In her basis of plea Beal said Mr Billigham would call her ‘old, washed out and fat’ and would ask her why she was wearing make up.

She said she found it difficult when Mr Billingham left her for other women and had affairs but he had persuaded her he had changed.

But she said after she bought her house things ‘quickly deteriorated’.

She said that when she complained to him about how he treated her he replied ‘Well, I don’t hit you.’

Mr Wheeler said: ‘She was a person who had always been spoken about in glowing terms by everyone who knew her both professionally and socially and a fantastic teacher placed as a consequence with the most challenging children- an environment she loved and she herself was loved in equal measure.’

He said he did not accept that Beal’s planning for the killing was ‘significant’.

The barrister said that when Beal intended to end her own life in Cumbria she intended her journals and therefore Mr Billingham’s body to be found.

He said Beal had suffered from recurrent depression and other mental health issues for many years.

The teacher, was smoking up to ten joints of cannabis a day before the killing and then returned to work behaving completely normally and took pupils on a school trip to London.

Police specialist search teams including a cadaver dog were later deployed to the home and Mr Billingham’s body was found after four days of digging.

In her journal Beal, who worked at the Eastfield Academy in Northampton, wrote about how she suspected he was having an affair with the woman whose house he was renovating and how she plotted the killing as her alter ego ‘Tulip 22’.

Keen Manchester United supporter Mr Billingham had affairs before and moved out of the home, but the couple had reconciled.