Fiona Beal: Police describe ‘cold-blooded’ murder after Northampton primary school teacher sent down for life

Beal begins her life sentence of a minimum of 20 years, less the time she has spent in remand, after admitting she murdered her partner and buried him in the garden of their Kingsley home.

The 50-year-old appeared for sentencing at a two-day hearing at the Old Bailey in London, having changed her plea to guilty to murder last month just a few days into the retrial of her case.

Beal, who showed no emotion as her sentence was passed today, had initially admitted only the manslaughter of Mr Billingham at the house they shared in Moore Street, sometime between October 30 and November 10, 2021.

Sentencing her to serve a minimum term of 20 years, The Recorder of London, His Honour Judge Mark Lucraft KC, described Beal’s lack of remorse as well as the “significant degree of planning and pre-meditation” she showed in murdering Nick.

Detective Sergeant Spencer Bailey of Northamptonshire Police issued this statement: “We welcome the sentence handed down today to Fiona Beal who will now spend many years behind bars for the cold-blooded murder of her former partner Nick Billingham.

“Nick was a hard-working 42-year-old father who died at the merciless hands of Beal, who had calculatedly planned his murder and then the subsequent burial of his body in the back garden of their Northampton home.

“For months afterwards she carried on living a life as if nothing had happened. But she was really living a lie.

“Using Nick’s phone she kept him in touch with family, friends, and work colleagues all of whom must have thought he was moving on with his life.

“But eventually, the pressures of her guilt overwhelmed her. The journal outlining what the jury was told was her ‘chilling execution’ of Nick meant there was never any doubt she had killed him.”

The first of Beal’s trials lasted for almost four months at Northampton Crown Court, which Detective Sergeant Bailey says had an “extraordinary toll” on Nicholas’ mother Yvonne and her husband Russell.

He continued: “So there was huge relief when Beal finally realised the game was up and she changed her plea to guilty of murder just days into her retrial.

“This was a pre-planned, cold-blooded murder after which Beal tried to cover up her tracks. We’ll never quite know if that wholly unconnected visit by a PCSO to her home in February 2022 was to signal the beginning of the end for her, but it has brought us to today and the long-awaited sentencing of her to life imprisonment.

“I would like to thank Nick’s family and his mother Yvonne for the extraordinary courage they have shown over this dreadful chapter in their life. We sincerely hope they can now begin to find some closure and move forward to happier times ahead.”