Northampton: Murder accused smoked '10 joints a day' before killing

Fiona Beal has accepted she killed Nicholas Billingham but denies murder

A primary school teacher accused of murdering her partner has said she smoked about 10 joints of cannabis a day when not at work.

Fiona Beal 49, denies murdering Nicholas Billingham in Northampton in 2021. His body was found in March 2022.

She told Northampton Crown Court that she could not remember details from the night she killed her partner.

She claimed her "broken" mental state could only make her guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter.

She previously told the court her only memories of burying Mr Billingham were "a dragging sensation" and "the body wrapped in the dining room".

Prosecutors have told the jury that Ms Beal, of Moore Street in Northampton, hid a knife in a bedside drawer and got Mr Billingham, 42, to wear an eye mask before stabbing him in their bedroom on 1 November.

Fiona Beal alleged Nicholas Billingham forced her into sex in October 2021

Ms Beal was asked by prosecutor Steven Perian KC about details of her sex life, a journal in which she is alleged to have planned the killing and the disposal of her partner's body, and online orders she placed after 1 November.

She asked Mr Perian not to refer to the journal as a "confession book" and said over the course of their relationship Mr Billingham had wanted "more extreme" things in their sexual relationship and had been spitting on her.

Ms Beal told the prosecutor she had felt "trapped" and had "no confidence" so did not contact police after on occasion in October 2021 when she alleged Mr Billingham forced her to have sex.

The prosecution said Ms Beal had not tested positive for Covid, but killed her partner after telling her school that she had contracted the virus.

Mr Billingham's body was found buried in the back garden of the property in Moore Street in March 2022

"I don't know to be honest. In my memory I think I had Covid but the evidence suggests I didn't," she told the court.

She admitted to smoking "quite a lot of cannabis" before Mr Billingham was killed, "maybe 10 joints a day" costing £50 a week, she said.

She also told the court she did not know if she took a weapon or ties to the bedroom and denied putting a mask on her partner.

The trial continues.

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