Claire Holland: Darren Osment guilty of murdering Bristol woman

A man has been found guilty of murdering his ex-partner, whose body has never been found.

Mum-of-four Claire Holland was killed in a drunken argument with Darren Osment in the hours after she left a Bristol city centre pub in June 2012.

Osment, 41, called 999 in 2019 and admitted killing her, but later retracted the confession.

The former chef has been found guilty of murder by majority verdict after a two-month trial at Bristol Crown Court.

During the trial, the court heard that detectives deployed an undercover officer to befriend Osment, of Chessel Drive, Patchway.

Osment was found guilty after a two-month trial

The officer recorded Osment's repeated confessions over Ms Holland's disappearance and death.

In one piece of audio, he said: "She ain't going to be seeing the light of day again, don't worry about that."

• 'I waited for Mum to return'

In another, Osment said that as a trained chef he has "knife skills" and ran his hand across his torso while making a swishing sound to indicate he had cut up Ms Holland's body and then weighted her down in water.

"Like I said, I'm not going to go into any details, I did what I did, I did what I done and…," Osment said.

"It makes me feel sick. But I did it for (my child)."

Despite police investigations, Claire Holland has not been found since she disappeared in 2012

The jury heard evidence that Osment had confessed to six different people, including a former girlfriend, her brother, friends, a 999 call handler, the undercover police officer and finally a prison inmate.

The undercover officer witnessed many examples of Osment's violent temper, particularly when drinking, the court heard.

Andrew Langdon KC, prosecuting, said: "That is relevant because we suggest that when he met with Claire Holland that night, he is likely to have lost his temper, lost control of himself and in using unrestrained violence he killed her.

"In other words, he is a man with an explosive temper with a propensity to use violence when angry, including to those who are weaker and more vulnerable than he."

Osment told the court he had confessed to the murder to "big himself up"

Mr Langdon said Osment had been "carrying the burden of knowing what he did to her" and had "sought to relieve himself of the burden" by making repeated confessions.

"He has, we suggest, never forgotten what he did to Claire," he said.

"He has always been haunted by the memory of it and that weight, the trauma of that memory, has taken a considerable toll upon him."

'A danger to women'

Osment denied murdering Ms Holland and claimed the confessions were the ramblings of a "drunken idiot".

Explaining why he made them, he told the jury: "Drinking too much, trying to big myself up, make myself out to be something I am not … the combination of the three."

After the verdict, senior investigating officer, Det Supt Darren Hannant, said: "The evidence we've gathered painstakingly over the last four years has proven that Osment is a selfish and violent misogynist who has abused almost everyone he has been close to.

"I'm in no doubt, Darren Osment is a danger to women, and our communities are a safer place with him behind bars."

Det Supt Hannant also said that the footage gathered by the undercover officer exposed Osment's "disturbing and hateful character" and also details about the murder "that otherwise would have remained unknown".

"We discovered he had lured Claire to the pub where he worked as a chef in Clifton on the evening of Wednesday June 6, 2012. He killed her and then disposed of her body, we believe most likely in water.

"He got rid of the physical evidence, through burning his clothes and disposing of a knife he claimed to have used."

Osment will be sentenced on 20 December.

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