LAST UPDATE | 12 Jul

A SECURITY GUARD has been sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum sentence of 16 years, for a plot to kidnap, rape and murder the TV presenter Holly Willoughby.

Gavin Plumb, 37, was snared after a US undercover police officer infiltrated an online group called Abduct Lovers and became so concerned about Plumb’s posts that evidence was passed to the FBI.

US law enforcement in turn contacted police in the UK, and when Essex Police officers raided Plumb’s flat in Harlow they found bottles of chloroform and an “abduction kit” complete with cable ties.

Plumb wept after jurors unanimously convicted him of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap following an earlier trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Former This Morning presenter Willoughby said after Plumb’s conviction last week that women “should not be made to feel unsafe … in our own homes”.

Holly Willoughby, who waived her right to anonymity.

The trial was told that Plumb’s plans were foiled when a potential accomplice who he spoke to online turned out to be an undercover officer from the Owatonna Police Department in the US state of Minnesota.

Plumb told the officer, who was using the pseudonym David Nelson, that he was “definitely serious” about his plot to kidnap Willoughby, leaving the officer with the impression that there was an “imminent threat” to her.

When Plumb was arrested on 4 October last year and officers told him that the allegations concerned Willoughby, the defendant told them: “I’m not gonna lie, she is a fantasy of mine.”

The Dancing On Ice star waived her right to anonymity in connection with the charge against Plumb of assisting or encouraging rape.

Alleged victims of sex offences or targets of sex offence conspiracies have a right to automatic anonymity for life from the moment an allegation is made by them or anyone else.

Plumb’s kidnap plans involved attempting to “ambush” Willoughby at her family home – even discussing taking time off work in order to organise the attack.

He told others he would then take the presenter to another location, which he suggested would be a “dungeon”-type room.

Gavin Plumb was arrested at his flat in Harlow in Essex after information from a US undercover officer was passed to UK police. PA PA

Prosecutors described Plumb’s plot as “carefully planned” – pointing to the items he had purchased and the lengths to which he had gone to find out when Willoughby did not have security.

In her opening to the jury, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told the court of his previous convictions for false imprisonment and attempted kidnap, saying that they showed he “knew what it would take to terrify and overpower a woman”.

Plumb had argued in his defence that it was just online chat and fantasy.

In his sentencing, Mr Justice Edward Murray told Plumb that “you discussed with Marc and David Nelson – and no doubt others – in hideous and revolting detail the prolonged sexual violence that you intended to inflict on Ms Willoughby once you abducted her and had her under your control.”

“You had previously been convicted of terrifying offences involving the threat of sexual violence against four different young women – I found you to be dangerous.”