- Primary school teacher Fiona Beal and her partner Nick Billingham, a builder, had been together for 17 years
- But their relationship was floundering because of Nick’s infidelity
- They split up, but then Fiona’s diary later revealed the sickening truth about what had happened to Nick
Fiona Beal was a dedicated primary school teacher.
But it was at a nightclub where, aged 30, she first met Nicholas Billingham.
The spark between them was immediate. Fiona thought Nick, five years younger and a builder, was caring and attentive.
He thought she was kind-hearted and beautiful, and the two became a couple.
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Seventeen years into their relationship though, Fiona and Nick were struggling.
Fiona, then 47, had found out that Nicholas, 42, had cheated – more than once.
As a result of one of the affairs, Nick had even had a child.
Later, in couples’ counselling, Nicholas penned an apology letter.
I promise to never again belittle you or make you feel rubbish again, he wrote. My body, my heart, my love has been yours since the day I met you and will be until the day I die. I love you with all my heart.
By November 2021, things seemed to be back on track.
But on November 8, Fiona texted her sister, explaining how things had fallen apart again.
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Not only do I have Covid, I’ve split up with Nick. Isolation has bought out some very unpleasant truths and he’s moved out, she wrote.
After 12 days at home, Fiona returned to work where colleagues offered their commiserations.
The following month, she even met up with Nick’s mum Yvonne, who sympathised about the couple’s separation as they had a drink together.
For several weeks, Nick’s family continued to hear from him, but didn’t see him – not even at Christmas.
In fact Yvonne hadn’t seen her son since October 18, when she’d run into him and Fiona at the shops.
But a text from Nick to his mum on December 30, saying he’d moved out of the home he shared with Fiona and moved on with another woman, filled in some of the gaps.
I know what you probably think of me but I felt like a prisoner and then I met Faye. I’m back selling cars and happy, he explained.
Meanwhile, Fiona did not appear to be coping.
In February 2022, she was signed off work with anxiety and stress. She went on holiday, but friends and family became concerned and asked police to carry out a welfare check on her.
At her rented cabin, police found a journal Fiona had been writing in, containing entries about what happened to Nick.
I encouraged the bath with the incentive of sex afterwards. While he was in the bath, I kept the knife in my dressing gown pocket and then I had it in the drawer next to the bed, one read.
This triggered an investigation that found Nick had not been seen alive since November 2021.
Police searched the couple’s home and, on March 19, found Nick’s body in a makeshift grave in the back yard – he’d died from a stab wound to the neck, which had severed his jugular vein.
Soon after, Fiona Beal was arrested and charged with murder.
She denied murdering her boyfriend, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to loss of control.
Her first trial collapsed when it emerged that a key witness was also a custody officer who had been visiting Beal in prison.
In May 2024, a retrial was ordered at London’s Old Bailey court. This time Beal pleaded guilty to murder.
She covered his eyes with a sleep mask, secured his wrists with cable ties
Her journal pieced together a timeline of what happened.
As per her writings, Beal had planned to kill Nick after suspecting he was having another affair.
Promising sex, she lured him to the bedroom where she covered his eyes with a sleep mask, secured his wrists with cable ties, and killed him with a single stab wound to the neck.
My last words to him when he asked why, was that he was not going to do to [another female] what he had done to me, Beal confessed.
She’d killed him for cheating.
Writing about discarding his body, she detailed, It was harder than I thought…
She buried Nick in a ‘makeshift coffin’ of breeze blocks, timber and bags of compost.
Beal had told family and friends she’d tested positive for Covid and was isolating, but it was a ruse to give her more time to bury the body.
I will never forgive you for Nick
She then used Nick’s phone to impersonate him, so everyone would think he was alive but had left her for another woman.
Beal alleged that she’d been in a coercive relationship.
Lawyer Andrew Wheeler KC said Beal had suffered traumatic amnesia after the crime and had written of her remorse.
I am eternally sorry. I am sorry for a lot. I am sorry I didn’t leave. I am sorry I let him rip my self-esteem and self-worth apart. I am sorry for what I did, her journal read.
Describing Beal’s actions as ‘a truly callous act’, in May 2024 Judge Mark Lucraft KC sentenced Fiona Beal, then 50, to life in prison, with a minimum term of 20 years.
In court, Nicholas’ mother Yvonne delivered a victim impact statement, referring to Beal as ‘evil’.
‘Behind her facade as a kindly schoolteacher, she was secretly planning the cold-blooded killing of Nick.
While she acknowledged her son ‘wasn’t an angel’ Nick’s mum was horrified Beal murdered her boy, then cruelly invited her over for a drink.
She had no idea her son ‘was buried in the garden just a few feet away’.
Nick’s sister Holly added, ‘As a primary school teacher you should have been caring, but you were not caring to Nick and instead killed him.
‘I will never forgive you for Nick. I will never forget Nick.’
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