Helen Bailey's fiance Ian Stewart found guilty of her murder
The author's tearful relatives embrace as Ian Stewart is convicted of murdering her in a long-planned plot to inherit her fortune.
Wednesday 22 February 2017 15:41, UK
The fiance of children's author Helen Bailey has been convicted of killing her and dumping her body in a cesspit as part of a plot to inherit her fortune.
The Electra Brown author, 51, went missing in April 2016 and her body was found three months later, hidden in a septic tank underneath a garage at her house in Royston, Hertfordshire.
At her side was the body of Boris, her devoted dachshund.
Jurors at St Albans Crown Court found Ian Stewart, 56, guilty of murder, preventing a lawful burial, fraud and three counts of perverting the course of justice.
The jury deliberated for five-and-a-half hours before returning the verdicts.
Outside the court, tearful relatives of Ms Bailey embraced. They welcomed the verdict, but said in a statement that her death had left them lingering in a "long shadow of loss".
Stewart had denied all charges. Wearing a pale grey shirt and no tie, the former software engineer shook his head upon hearing the verdicts.
He is due to be sentenced on Thursday.
Prosecutors said he was motivated by greed and accused him of killing Ms Bailey in a plot to inherit her £3.3m fortune.
The two, who had both lost their spouses, met on a Facebook group for the bereaved in 2011 and started a relationship.
Stewart earned his way into Ms Bailey's trust and later her estate after launching what a prosecutor called a "love-bombing" offensive.
"She was being grossly deceived by someone who was preying on her," prosecutor Stuart Trimmer told his trial.
Stewart spent months secretly poisoning his companion with his sedatives, smothering her once she had been stupefied in April last year, prosecutors said during the trial.
The dog was killed to make the author's disappearance more believable, prosecutors told the trial.
Ms Bailey's body lay undiscovered under the couple's luxury home for three months.
Stewart initially said the author had left to seek some "space" at her seaside cottage in Broadstairs, Kent. But a search turned up nothing.
Eventually he told police of a kidnap plot by two men only identified as Nick and Joe.
In the meantime, while playing the part of the abandoned lover, he also boosted a standing order to himself from Ms Bailey's account, making thousands of pounds in the three months it took to find her body.
Now, officials say that a financial inquiry will be held to ensure he did not profit from the murder.
And police say they will look back into the "sudden, unexpected" death of Stewart's first wife, Diane, who was found in the couple's garden in 2010.
Bailey was best known for her young adult stories and memoir on bereavement.
She created the Electra Brown and Daisy Davenport novels for teenagers, and wrote a blog called Planet Grief after her husband of 22 years drowned during a Caribbean holiday in 2011.