Guard's Appeal Over Willoughby Plot Dismissed

Gavin Plumb, 38, a security guard, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 16 years after a unanimous conviction for soliciting murder and encouraging or assisting others to kidnap and rape TV presenter Holly Willoughby. Evidence at trial showed he planned to ambush Willoughby at her family home, move her to an isolated "dungeon"-type location or stud farm to sexually torture and kill her, and police recovered an "abduction kit," bottles of chloroform and a handwritten list of 136 female celebrities with Willoughby at the top. US undercover officers infiltrated an online group called Abduct Lovers, passed evidence to the FBI that helped lead to his arrest, and recorded Plumb saying he was "definitely serious." Plumb appealed, arguing his offending was fantasy and that the sentence was "manifestly excessive," but the Court of Appeal dismissed the challenge as unpersuasive. Sentencing judges and prosecutors described his decade-long obsession as "particularly sadistic, brutal and degrading," warning the offending had life-changing consequences for Willoughby.