Channel 5 airs Gavin Plumb's chilling phone footage showing off tools to kidnap Holly Willoughby

Daily Mirror

01-05-2025

Channel 5's documentary The Plot to Kill Holly Willoughby looks at security guard Gavin Plumb's horrific plans to abduct the ITV presenter - and airs some of his chilling footage
Channel 5 has aired terrifying footage of Gavin Plumb showing off his kidnapping materials in its documentary The Plot to Kill Holly Willoughby. Last year, security guard Plumb, 37, was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years for conspiring to abduct, rape and murder ITV presenter Holly Willoughby after being caught by an undercover police officer in a chatroom.
Tonight's documentary looks at Plumb's obsession with the former This Morning presenter and how he was eventually brought to justice. In one shocking scene, the film shows Plumb's own phone footage, in which he displays the materials he had gathered to abduct Holly.
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The footage was sent to David Nelson - an undercover officer monitoring the chatroom 'Abduct Lovers' who Plumb thought would assist him in his plot. In the clip, the camera shows an array of home invasion apparatus laid out on a bed.
"Hand and ankle shackles, real ball gag, three lots of rope, metal cable ties, two sets of handcuffs," Plumb is heard saying in the clip.
Alongside the footage, Plumb also details his plans to David, writing in WhatsApp messages: "I have a s**t load of information on her, I know when she does and don't have security..." he wrote. "And that she doesn't have CCTV at home, what time she gets up in the morning..."
David, who is based in the US and uses a fake name on the platform, alerted Essex police to the threat and Plumb was quickly arrested.
Plumb was found guilty for soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, with Mr Justice Edward Murray saying in his judgement: "There is no doubt that if you had genuinely found one or more accomplices who were seriously interested in and had been willing to join you in carrying your plan through then you would have put this plan into action."
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The Channel 5 documentary features interviews with journalists, detectives and psychologists as they explore the horrific case - however, Holly declined to contribute or appear in the production.
A source close to Holly told The Mirror last week that the TV presenter wants to move on from the ordeal. "She's a very strong woman. As far as she's concerned, it happened, it's in the past, and she wants to get on with her life and move on," they said.
"In an ideal world it would be something that's never spoken about again, but Holly knows that's not going to happen, so she'll just ride it out. She's haunted by the past but she won't be retraumatised by it. She feels the same about the whole Phillip Schofield thing at This Morning – it happened, it's over, move on."