A chef mentioned he paid somebody to have his ex-partner killed in a confession to police – seven years after she vanished on an evening out, a jury heard.
Alcoholic Darren Osment is accused of murdering Claire Holland, who disappeared in Bristol in 2012 and whose physique has by no means been discovered.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court docket on Monday heard how the 41-year-old was attributable to see Ms Holland after ending a shift at a pub on the night time she went lacking – however he instructed police within the days after that they hadn’t met, and he had gone house alone.
Nevertheless, Mr Andrew Langdon KC, prosecuting, instructed the jury how Osment had made numerous drunken confessions, together with to police, within the years that adopted Ms Holland’s disappearance.
The conversations revealed how Osment blamed Ms Holland for his or her youngster being taken into care earlier than they cut up up in 2010, mentioned Mr Langdon.
In 2014, Osment instructed a roommate he had strangled Ms Holland earlier than throwing her physique into Avonmouth Docks, 9 miles from town, mentioned Mr Langdon. Then, in 2018, he instructed one other man in a pub that he had paid somebody £500 to have her “executed”, the jury heard.
In 2019, Osment made a 999 name on an evening out in Devon during which he mentioned: “I’m handing myself in”. When the operator requested “you murdered your ex?”, Osment replied: “Kind of, I do know what occurred to her.”
When police arrived to seek out him, he continued his confession, mentioned Mr Langdon, who learn a transcript of Osment saying: “I gave some cash to somebody they usually had her killed.”
A court docket artist sketch of Darren Osment, 41, at Bristol Crown Court docket the place he’s accused of killing his ex-partner
(PA Wire)
Later, in a police interview, Osment mentioned he couldn’t keep in mind the 999 name or his dialogue with law enforcement officials, mentioned Mr Langdon, who instructed the jury: “You’ll on the finish of the case ask your self are all these confessions false confessions, is that the reason for the distinction? Or will you conclude that in every, Darren Osment was attempting to take accountability for the very fact he did certainly kill Claire?
“Is he for some purpose attempting to say accountability for one thing he didn’t do to make himself look massive? Or was he, by means of the assorted drunken confessions he made, attempting to alleviate himself of the burden that he carried?
“If this is so, then it seems, the prosecution say, he lacks the braveness to explain what he truly did, the reminiscence of it, it’s so horrid, so ghastly that in the case of it he can’t convey himself to spell it out.”
The court docket heard the defendant and Ms Holland met in 2008 once they labored collectively in a restaurant and commenced a relationship, with their solely youngster being born in 2010. The kid was taken into foster care after police had been referred to as to the house they shared in Bradley Stoke following allegations of alcohol-fuelled home violence.
The couple later separated – however had been attributable to meet, mentioned Mr Langdon, to speak about their son after he had been moved to Torquay to reside with Ms Holland’s aunt.
The defendant, of Chessel Drive, Patchway, South Gloucestershire, has pleaded not responsible to homicide on a date between June 5 and June 8 2012.
The trial continues.
