Helen Bailey: Man arrested

[BringMeTea]

Very sad.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-36768593

Yes, the killing of the dog was very upsetting (well, the whole thing was upsetting, of course).

But it strikes me as a gross miscalculation. After she'd been missing a few weeks, it became obvious that she wasn't access her bank account or using her phone. That would suggest that perhaps she'd met with an accident or killed herself. But if that had been the case, the dog would have turned up. (This was all in a Guardian interview with the police before they found her body.)

The whole thing is beyond awful but I feel desperately sorry for his two sons - they lived in the family home and by all accounts had a very good relationship with Helen Bailey. It looks like they had not the faintest inkling of any of this and will now have to suffer the awful investigation into their own mother's death too. How terrible.

Evil fucking man. A bloody predatory psychopath from the looks of it.

I don't know if anyone here has read her book about grief but she dedicates it to this piece of shit and declares how much she loves him. All while he was drugging her and plotting her death. Th n he dumps her in the cesspit and then continues using the toilet daily ....if anything tells you what he really thought of Helen and Boris it's that.

He will go to prison and hopefully die there.

His poor sons having to come to terms with what he has done and also that he may have killed their Mum.

Evil bastard...the lives he has ruined.

So very sad - I read her blog and she wrote so movingly about her life after her husband's death and then gave glimpses of her new life, the life she hoped would be so happy, with this dreadful man.

Like many people I felt I knew Helen, I was on a widow group with her, she met him there, she really was a very lovely giving person, she supported many many people.
I will always remember the chats in the early hours when neither of us could sleep.
He is due to be sentenced tomorrow, I hope he gets life.
Her family will be facing a lifetime without Helen.

I am sorry you lost your friend Klaptout.
Hope the bastard gets life, full term.

I'm wondering if they actually were engaged. Her Will said she intended to marry him but his sons didn't know that and neither did neighbours.

There was an engagement ring and she'd talked about it to some people and wanted to make arrangement but apparently he'd been dragging his feet and not keen to talk publicly about it. As if he didn't think she was good enough for him

I'd also read in accounts of the trial that he had said she liked to use Mumsnet. So she was one of us. RIP Helen and Boris.

I would imagine he'll get a long sentence. I do feel for his sons, especially since their mother's death now also looks suspicious.

She definitely was an MNer.

Unfortunately, it's going to be impossible to prove what did or didn't happen to Diane - his 1st wife - as she was cremated.

To give you some hope Dory ...it's now possible to test cremated remains for things like date rape drugs etc.

Of course how accurate this is remains to be seen. Unless tiny samples of liver remain from PM I can't see how they will prove anything. I am glad they are looking at it Diane again. Generally people don't get to 56 and suddenly become psychopaths...he has probably been manipulating people all his life.

He's been given a sentence of 34 years, and the judge said he was a danger to women, so hopefully he's never getting out. What a terrible terrible thing he did.

Scumbag. He was punching well above his weight to even get her to look at him in the first place.

Ach well, enjoy prison. Won't be quite as comfortable as the mansion he was living in previously but I guess that's an occupational hazard of being a murderer.

I am so glad he's been given a 34-year minimum sentence. Horrible, horrible, horrible man

Bastard will be 90 before he can even apply for parole, so he'll die in jail. I hope he rots in hell.

I hope her poor family can find some peace now, especially her Mother.

RIP Helen

So sad that on her blog she wrote about the fact that his sons had welcomed her into their lives. Now this evil man has ruined their lives as well as taking Helen's from her.

The interview with a CPS lawyer was interesting. He suggested that Ian Stewart probably had very few deep feelings,. Good description of a psychopath if ever I saw one,

I would lay money on the fact that he also killed his first wife. It will be nigh in impossible to prove but I hope they at least look at all the facts so her family gets some answers.

I was incensed when I heard that the scumbag had refused to attend court or appear via video link. In my opinion he should have been dragged from his cell to hear the sentence.

However, he's got 34 years which is in effect a whole life tariff because he not in the best of health....although evidently far healthier than he lead everyone to believe going by his very busy day on 11th April last year.

Now I want to just forget him and remember the beautiful vibrant person Helen Bailey was along with her gorgeous dog. I will also think of Diane who from her photos looks an absolutely lovely person. I will think of his sons who despite being adults are now having to go forward without both parents. Thankfully Diane had family who can probably offer support to her son's.

#HerNameWasHelen
#HerNameWasDiane

He was given life with a min of 34 yrs before parole to be considered. Its normally apparently 15 min so the judge certainly reflected teh serious nature of what he did.

Thoughts to those she touched as its just so shocking and sad.

There is a lovely article about Helen here called 'More than a Victim'

I watched the programme last night. Very sad.
I was intrigued with the case as I wasn't much older than Helen when I met my widower thru old.
Thinking how he lived with her and her friends and family for quite a few years , enjoying the good life while secretly plotting her death.
Why couldn't he just enjoy the good life?

What was it about her money that was so important to him that he wanted her out of the way?

What could he have bought that he would kill a lovely, vivacious lady for?

He was pretty scruffy looking individual from what I saw. If he thought money was going to make him look more appealing he needed to think again. He should have been thanking his lucky stars. He obviously wasn't very bright. He ought to have known that when a person vanishes mysteriously the first suspect is the partner, then all the others in the family as the net widens.

He might have thought he committed the perfect murder with the perfect hiding place but keeping the crime concealed and maintaining his lies is a wholly different ball game that requires real skill and he wasn't in that league.

I don't have a cesspit and my dh has been well warned!

I agree, Dowser. There was always a strong chance that he was going to be found out. Perhaps if he did kill his first wife and get away with it, he thought he'd be OK.

But he didn't think through the consequence of his lies properly nor seem to realise that the police would keep track of his spending from his bank account or have CCTV footage of him going to the dump. Pretending that she'd written a note that you then claim to have accidentally thrown out also looks pretty suspicious.

Like you, I don't understand the motive. She was generous with her money and he had all the benefits of that. What did he think he was going to be able to do with the inheritance that he wasn't already doing?

My heart breaks for her. She was so trusting.

I was thinking about his late wife and how he might have killed her. There's a discussion on a forum called Web Sleuths where it was suggested that he might simply have tampered with her epilepsy medication and/or drugged her in the way he did Helen Bailey.

www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?330092-UK-TRIAL-Helen-Bailey-51-Royston-11-April-2016-11-GUILTY!/page24

I think you could have a good point there. If he did get away it the first time, just by sheer dumb luck, he might very well have thought he'd manage it the second time.

If he is the arrogant personality type he seems, then he may well have assumed he could get away with it. As for why, well Helen Bailey could changed her mind about him at any time. Then it would all be gone.

hackmum from knowing people who knew his first wife, him and Helen well, it seems no-one is convinced that Helen's money was the motive at all.

It seems that this was the only thing the prosecution could find to hang a motive on. He would have actually been better off if he'd waited a few more months until after they were married.

Dp and I watched this programme last night and have talked about it again this evening. Dp keeps on saying how he can't understand it and why, if money was the motivation, did Stewart not just get married to Helen, wait a while and then seek a divorce? Stewart also seems to have been a bit dim as surely it takes a long time, ?7years?, to declare a missing person dead.

I can't help but think that there must have been something else going on, maybe Helen had started to see through him and he feared it was all about to end and he would lose the access to her money?