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 Courtroom on Monday heard how the 41-year-old was as a consequence of see Ms Holland after ending a shift at a pub on the night time she went lacking – however he advised police within the days after that they hadn’t met, and he had gone residence alone.
Nevertheless, Mr Andrew Langdon KC, prosecuting, advised the jury how Osment had made a lot of 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 baby being taken into care earlier than they cut up up in 2010, mentioned Mr Langdon.
In 2014, Osment advised 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 advised 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 by which he mentioned: “I’m handing myself in”. When the operator requested “you murdered your ex?”, Osment replied: “Type of, I do know what occurred to her.”
When police arrived to search 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 courtroom artist sketch of Darren Osment, 41, at Bristol Crown Courtroom 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 advised 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 making an attempt to take duty for the actual fact he did certainly kill Claire?
“Is he for some motive making an attempt to say duty for one thing he didn’t do to make himself look massive? Or was he, by means of the varied drunken confessions he made, making an attempt to alleviate himself of the burden that he carried?
“If that is the case, then it seems, the prosecution say, he lacks the braveness to explain what he really did, the reminiscence of it, it’s so horrid, so ghastly that with regards to it he can’t deliver himself to spell it out.”
The courtroom heard the defendant and Ms Holland met in 2008 after they labored collectively in a restaurant and started a relationship, with their solely baby being born in 2010. The kid was taken into foster care after police have been known as to the house they shared in Bradley Stoke following allegations of alcohol-fuelled home violence.
The couple later separated – however have been as a consequence of 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.
