'We were in your front room having a drink and you knew you had buried my son only feet from where I was sat'

A primary school teacher has been branded “pure evil” by his victim's mother as she is set to be sentenced for murder.

Fiona Beal, 50, stabbed her partner, Nicholas Billingham, 42, in the neck at their home in November 2021. She then buried his body in a side passage outside and pretended to his friends and family that he had left her.

She sent messages from his phone and convinced his family he was safe and happy in a sickening cover-up. His body was found months later, in March 2022, and Beal was arrested and charged with his murder, which she has admitted.

On the first day of Beal's sentencing at the Old Bailey yesterday (May 29), Mr Billingham's mother, Yvonne Valentine, told the court of her grief. She recalled the last time she saw her son when she ran into him with Beal in Tesco on October 18, 2021.

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In a victim impact statement read to court, she said: “I remember being happy to see you both together and that you gave me a hug but it never crossed my mind that you were quietly and secretly planning to kill Nick.”

After Mr Billingham was killed, Ms Valentine sent texts to him and Beal which went unanswered.

She said: “I now know that Nick could not reply to my message and that he will never reply to any of my messages again because you killed him and buried him in the garden…like rubbish.

“During December 2021, I heard from family that Nick had left Fiona, moved away from Northampton and was living in Essex with someone called Faye. I remember feeling very surprised to hear this news and felt that it was strange for him to have done that.

“I didn’t know it at the time but this was the start of your deceit to cover up that you had