Yahoo News Watch: Killer confesses to murder in undercover police recording
The killer of Claire Holland, a mother-of-four who had been missing for more than a decade, confessed to her murder in undercover police recordings.
The 32-year-old had been missing since she left a pub in Bristol during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and, despite numerous appeals, no trace of her has ever been found.
Seven years later, her former partner Darren Osment, 41, a chef from Patchway near Bristol, rang 999 to say he “had her killed” but then denied any involvement and was not charged, with the chance of a conviction low.
It prompted a 20-month undercover investigation launched by Avon and Somerset Police, during which he confessed to the killing in front of a plain-clothes police officer 16 times.
Videos of the confessions have now been released after he was found guilty of murder by a jury’s majority verdict following an 11-week trial at Bristol Crown Court.
During the covert operation in 2020, a plain-clothes officer using the name “Paddy O’Hara” moved into a flat 300 yards down the road from Osment’s home.
The officer befriended the killer, posing as a criminal selling stolen or fake clothes while secretly filming 1,200 hours of footage. They spent almost four hours together every day, often drinking together.
But during the friendship, Osment confessed to O’Hara he had “done horrible f------ s---” and could not turn the clock back as “what is done is done”. At one point he referred to Mrs Holland having a “nice f------ swimming lesson” and then struggled not to vomit and mentioned her body being “halfway to Spain”.
Videos of the encounters, while driving and seated at home, were released by police after being played to the jury at Bristol Crown Court.
Responding to questions about whether her body would float, in one video Osment responded: “It’s all f------ weighed, it’s all down, it’s not going to come floating back up.”
After declaring his trust in “Paddy”, Osment told him: “I don’t f------ cast my mind back to what I had to f------ do, you know what I mean. It’s not f------ pleasant bro. It was f------ horrible.”
On another occasion, he described it as “all done and dusted”, adding: “As far as I am aware the bits and pieces are scattered.”
He later told the officer: “It makes me feel sick. But I did it for (my child). Cause she harmed my f------ child. And how they were brought up is f------ wrong. Don’t f--- with my family. You harm (my child) or (my other child) mate, you’re going to get it.”
Andrew Langdon KC, prosecuting, said Osment’s confessions to Paddy came after he had already admitted the killing on a 999 call in July 2019 and to officers when they arrived at his home to arrest him.
But he later denied any involvement and said any confession was “untrue” and the result of drink and drugs, before being released under investigation.
Bristol Crown Court heard the victim met the defendant in 2008 when they became colleagues at the same café, before she became pregnant with her third child, and his first, but the relationship turned “abusive” and she left him for another man.
On the day of her disappearance in June 2012, the court heard that Mrs Holland arrived at the Seamus O’Donnell’s pub in Bristol at around 3.45pm. She was then seen on CCTV chatting to Osment on the phone and stayed until closing time. There has been no trace of her since.
Claire Holland’s sister, Sarah Holland, said in a police statement: “It’s like a void which you can’t fill. You know that there’s something missing in your life and you can’t explain. Carrying it around is like you’ve got some darkness behind you and you can’t remove it and you just don’t know what to do to make that darkness bright again.”
Osment is due to be sentenced on Dec 20.
