Gavin Plumb has a history of trying to kidnap or falsely imprison women which resulted in several convictions, the court was told yesterday.
On August 14, 2006, the man accused of plotting to kidnap and murder Holly Willoughby approached a woman on a train, sat opposite her and showed her a note. It said: ‘I have got a gun. All you have to do is keep quiet. Do what I say.
‘So just stand up and get off at the next stop with me. Don’t cry or make a sound. Don’t stop me from touching you because I won’t hurt you.
‘If you do all this, no one will get hurt but if you don’t I am going to shoot you and myself and everyone else.’
The ‘terrified’ victim began to cry and other passengers came over, leading to Plumb tearing up the note and fleeing at the next stop.
Two days later he approached another woman on a train, this time carrying an imitation firearm and a note claiming he was a policeman and that she needed to get off at the next stop with him ‘so that he could speak to her’.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said: ‘She refused to get off the train with him but when she did get off the train, she reported the matter to police.
‘The defendant was found to be in possession of an imitation firearm, three rope ligatures and various notes he had used or intended to use to try and get women off the train.’
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In November 2008, Plumb was working at a Woolworths in Harlow, Essex, when he ordered two 16-year-old female colleagues who were busy restocking on the first floor of the unit to ‘get to the back of the stockroom’.
Threatening them with a knife, he told them to turn around and put their hands behind their backs. ‘He then took some rope and tape out of his pocket and he tied the hands of one of the girls,’ Ms Morgan said.
‘As he did so, the other girl managed to escape and she managed to raise the alarm.
‘Both of the girls were terrified. The police were called and they arrested the defendant.’
During conversations he had unwittingly with an undercover officer about his alleged Holly Willoughby plot, Plumb revealed he had been jailed for 16 months for false imprisonment over the incident.
Referring to the latest allegations, Ms Morgan added: ‘You will consider all of that against the background that, as he boasted to others online, he had done it before.
‘He had sought to kidnap and to imprison other real women. Using a real weapon and real methods of restraint – terrifying real women.’