Missed possibilities to cease Holly’s stalker, who was accused of rape

 Throughout his life Gavin Plumb has had a problem with women.

The youngest of three brothers, the 37-year-old ‘mummy’s boy’ from Harlow, Essex, started life in a council house with his father, Adrian Broad, and his mother. His parents’ marriage did not last, and when his mum wed a security guard, the children took the surname Plumb.

A half-brother followed. The boys’ biological father, who also remarried, would barely feature in his sons’ lives from then onwards.

Mr Broad, 61, told the Daily Mail: ‘We split up and I had visitation rights for the boys.

‘But I had to stop seeing them because my father-in-law said I couldn’t bring them around there any more. They all think I abandoned them but I didn’t; it’s because I had nowhere to take them. None of my boys want to speak to me.’

Plumb’s 62-year-old mother, who worked as a hospital healthcare assistant, declined to speak with the Mail but has resolutely stuck up for her son despite his obvious flaws and failings.

‘His mum is a big part of his life,’ a family friend said. ‘She adores him and worships the ground he walks on. She loves her children unconditionally.’

Described as a ‘quiet’ child, Plumb grew up collecting Ghostbusters merchandise and playing the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.

‘He was biggish; simple-looking,’ said the mother of an old school friend at Passmores secondary school in Harlow. ‘He’s always been like that.’

Indeed, by the age of 13, Plumb had started to put on so much weight that he noticed girls would ‘friendzone’ him rather than fancy him. Those who know him believe his future behaviour around women is rooted in the sexual frustration he experienced from then on.

In 2003, and at Harlow College, he was one of a number of students who helped create a mosaic for the town’s bus station, appearing alongside the work of art on the front page of the local newspaper.

It would be the only time in his life that he would garner positive headlines.

Soon after, he embarked on the one serious relationship of his lifetime.

He first met Laura Roberts aged 12 – her sister was at school with him. Slim and standing at just 5ft tall, she was dwarfed by her new boyfriend. They started dating at 18.

‘I always looked younger than my age when I was that young,’ Ms Roberts wrote next to a photo from the time posted on her Facebook page.

This was to be no love story. Ms Roberts has told friends she only got together with Plumb, by then piling on the pounds and with a personal hygiene problem, because he was a ‘safe bet’ who ‘no one else would want’.

It would turn into a deeply ‘toxic relationship’ – Plumb’s words – that the Mail can reveal was punctuated by accusations of domestic violence.

‘He was really nice at the beginning and then, eight months into the relationship, he became violent,’ a friend of the couple claimed.

‘It started off with emotional abuse and then became physical. He wouldn’t let her spend money on what she wanted. When she was pregnant with their son she had cravings, but he wouldn’t let her buy chocolate for herself unless she bought it for him as well.

‘They’d have arguments and he’d lay into her. They could argue over anything. It was stupid. He just seemed to love the power.’

On a number of occasions Ms Roberts called police to report that Plumb had physically attacked her, and he was arrested on at least one occasion. Last night a police source confirmed that reports of domestic violence were made but that Plumb was never charged with any offence.

After spells working at Asda and in the café of the local greyhound track, Plumb landed a job travelling by rail between stations, checking car-parking tickets.

It would provide him with the first opportunity to indulge his sick fantasies.

In August 2006, the 19-year-old targeted two uniformed Ryanair workers travelling from Bishop’s Stortford to Stansted Airport.

In the first incident he sat in front of one of the women and handed her a note. It read: ‘I will do anything.’

When she moved to another seat Plumb followed and showed her another piece of paper that stated: ‘I have got a gun. Do what I say. So just stand up and get off at the next stop with me. Don’t cry or make a sound. Don’t stop me from touching you because I won’t hurt you. If you do all of this, no one will get hurt but if you don’t, I am going to shoot you and myself and everyone else.’

When she became upset, other passengers intervened. Plumb moved down the carriage and got off.

Two days later, another air stewardess was in an almost empty carriage when Plumb sat beside her.

He showed her a note which read: ‘I’m a police officer. You have to get off at the next station for a quick chat.’

He asked her if she wanted to see his ID and he produced a card. The woman said nothing and Plumb got off at the next stop.

Soon after he was approached by a British Transport Police officer on the platform. When asked if he had claimed to be a police officer, Plumb said: ‘My little brother uses my coat. He pretends to be a police officer. I’ve just remembered, there’s a gun in my pocket.’

He had a black toy handgun and three pieces of rope on him. When arrested, he said that he wanted to be a police community support officer.

Giving evidence in the Willoughby trial he was again probed about the incident – this time admitting that he had fantasies about air stewardesses. It was also revealed that he had referred to the women in messages, writing: ‘Can you blame me for trying to take the sl***?’

The following March, Plumb, who had been held in prison on remand, pleaded guilty to two charges of attempted kidnap and received a 12-month suspended sentence.

It was his first conviction. In mitigation the court was told the offences were ‘an aberration’. If only.

For a time Plumb and Ms Roberts carried on their dysfunctional relationship. But after a son and a daughter were born within 11 months of one another, they split.

‘She said he was like having another child, rather than a partner,’ a friend said. ‘He rarely washed and she used to have to run his showers for him and tell him to get in. And he never stopped eating. He would have four bits of toast in the morning followed by loads of fruit.

‘Then he would have a big lunch, like two to four sandwiches, then he would have loads of chocolate and rubbish to eat and then, after that, two dinners. He’d even steal his son’s food when he was a baby.’

In November 2008, Plumb was accused of rape, the Daily Mail can reveal.

During the alleged incident, Plumb was accused of forcing his victim to the floor and covering her mouth with his hand. At the time Plumb was said to have been dressed in a red Liverpool strip, an outfit he often wore.

(Indeed, such is Plumb’s love of the club that in 2020 he even recorded an excruciatingly bad rendition of its anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone as part of a lockdown project designed to bring fans together. The footage is still available online.)

The alleged rape was reported to Essex Police and the victim was interviewed by specialist officers, but the Mail understands Plumb apparently claimed that the sexual encounter was consensual.

Last night a police source confirmed that an allegation of rape against Plumb had been made but that it resulted in no further action being taken against Plumb.

Just weeks later, in December, Plumb was in trouble again, this time after targeting two 16-year-old girls working at Woolworths, where he had got a job as a shop assistant.

Given his criminal record, it is unclear how he landed the role or whether he underwent any checks.

Those who worked there at the time remember him as a dishevelled character with terrible body odour.

Two weeks before Christmas, the girl and a friend were working in an upstairs store room when they asked Plumb for help.

Instead, he pulled out a knife, telling them: ‘Get to the back of the stockroom.’

Removing rope and tape from his pockets, he made the girls face a wall, taping the hands of one of them behind her back. As he then prepared to gag her mouth, the second girl ran off. The alarm was raised and Plumb arrested.

In June 2009 he pleaded guilty to two charges of false imprisonment and one of battery and was jailed for 32 months.

While those involved with the case believed it was a sexually motivated crime, when giving evidence last week the 37-year-old claimed it was in fact ‘a cry for help’.

Indeed, during cross-examination, he claimed that both his offences were motivated by a desire to be incarcerated so he could get away from his partner.

An extraordinary excuse – but par for the course for a man who always saw himself as the victim.

Clearly his time inside did little to change Plumb.

Because far from showing remorse for what he had done, when discussing the Willoughby plot with other men online he boasted of his previous convictions.

He also suggested that prison had not been bad – saying that he had been able to watch as much television as he wanted and have use of a telephone.

On his release on licence, Plumb was banned from being in the company of under-18s. His ex-partner duly won a court order stopping him from seeing his two children, which Plumb unsuccessfully challenged.

Jobs at Pizza Hut and McDonald’s followed.

Meanwhile, Plumb’s love life continued to go badly.

The Mail has learned that in 2013 he was beaten up on the streets of Harlow on the instruction of a disgruntled ex-girlfriend.

He then claimed to have enjoyed a two-month relationship with a woman who was into bondage and sadomasochism. When he was arrested last year, police found equipment including a ball gag, ring gag, blindfolds and cuffs at his flat.

The prosecution claimed it was actually a ‘restraint kit’ to be used on Ms Willoughby, 43.

Not only was it unused but Plumb refused to divulge the bondage-loving woman’s identity, claiming: ‘It’s not fair to name her.’ A noble gesture? Or, as the prosecution suggested, she simply did not exist.

Already obese, Plumb’s weight ballooned around this time, heading towards an all-time high of 35-and-a-half stone.

‘He started to get like that after the relationship breakdowns,’ said a friend. ‘Another factor was not getting to see the children. He just gave up on life.’

Stuck in his flat, he would consume vast amounts of junk food washed down with four pints of cola a day.

That we know the detail of his life is thanks to a series of interviews he did with the BBC, firstly in 2016 and then in 2018. He had originally contacted Radio 5 Live to describe his long struggle with his weight.

Unsurprisingly, he never shared the darker side of his life with the nation’s broadcaster.

‘The last time I went out unaided was 2014 – it was my parents’ wedding vow renewal,’ he moaned. ‘I only really go out my front door to put out a bin bag – that’s every few days. Other than that, I don’t leave my doorstep.’

But friends question that version of events, saying: ‘It was all ‘poor me’ with Gavin. He told the BBC he couldn’t go out of his house, but he used to go everywhere.’

Plumb added: ‘I get chest pains and I’ve just been told it’s because of my weight. I’m scared that if I have something to eat or if I get up and I do too much, that’s it, I’m done.’

He praised his ‘fantastic’ parents who came over to clean but said his mother was so worried he might have a heart attack that he had given her a set of keys – ‘just in case’.

And so it was in April 2018 that Plumb underwent surgery to have a gastric sleeve fitted, reducing his stomach’s capacity. It was, he said, his ‘last resort’.

The operation was a success. Within ten days he had lost 22lbs.

‘When I left the hospital I was wearing 5XL clothes but about two months later I was able to fit into a 3XL T-shirt,’ he said.

‘That was really emotional for me. I feel better about myself but I still don’t like the way I look. I know that will come in time and I will get my confidence back. I do feel happier within myself.’

And he added: ‘This surgery is not only going to change my life, it’s going to save my life.’

Outwardly, at least, things did appear to improve for Plumb.

His stepfather, who himself worked as a security guard, is understood to have got Plumb a similar role at a shopping centre in Harlow. Again, how he managed to get such a job given his previous convictions is unclear.

In messages revealed during his recent trial Plumb claimed to have undergone formal security training and to have passed his Security Industry Authority (SIA) licence, which is required for most roles within the UK security industry.

But an SIA spokesman told the Mail that in fact Plumb had never held such a licence.

‘He talked about his family a lot,’ said another acquaintance. ‘He was excited to be getting his life back together. He was a massive gamer and liked spending time on his computer.

‘He mentioned he liked playing shooting games. He was looking to move into a new house because his current place had one bedroom. He said he’d been speaking to the social services.’

But dig a little deeper and what we now know is that nothing had fundamentally changed about who and what Plumb was.

He had in fact spent the best part of a decade indulging his perversions online.

Communicating via messaging services with a band of depraved oddballs, Plumb joined secret groups with names such as ‘Abduct Lovers’ on Kik, a Canadian messaging app, where members discussed kidnap, rape and finding accomplices to ‘carry out murders’.

One of his most frequent online contacts was a user named ‘Marc’, who told Plumb he was from Ireland.

When Plumb was arrested, he had 10,322 images of Ms Willoughby and other celebrities, as well as deep-fake pornography featuring her.

Ultimately the plan concocted by Plumb involved putting together a gang to break into mother-of-three Ms Willoughby’s house, where they would use chloroform to incapacitate her and husband Dan Baldwin, 49.

She would then be taken to a ‘dungeon-style room’ and repeatedly raped before her throat was slit and her body dumped in a lake.

In describing exactly what he wanted to do to Ms Willoughby, Plumb said: ‘Getting her has been my ultimate fantasy for way too long. I’m now at the point that fantasy isn’t enough any more. I want the real thing.’

Plumb anticipated ending up in prison, the court was told, but described the ’23-hour bang-up’ regime in jail as an opportunity to ‘watch as much TV as you like’.

In the end he would be arrested on October 4 last year after he began chatting with a US-based undercover police officer, whose findings were passed to the Metropolitan Police.

When police smashed their way into his flat and informed him he was being accused of conspiracy to kidnap Ms Willoughby, Plumb told officers: ‘I’m not gonna lie. She is a fantasy of mine.’

In his defence Plumb would claim that it was all just online chat, saying: ‘There’s a massive difference between what’s online and real life.’

He also played down comments about ‘leaping over a fence’ during the planned night-time raid at Ms Willoughby’s London house, saying: ‘I’ve got more chance of tripping over a step.’

As for the chloroform, he claimed that he had only purchased two bottles of the liquid because he wanted to remove a stain from his carpet.

In letters written to friends from prison he spoke of his confidence that he would get off, arguing that because it was all online there were no actual victims this time.

But as the girls and women unfortunate enough to be targeted in the past know to their cost, Plumb’s fantasies were so uncontrollable that anything might have happened.