{"id":24680,"date":"2023-02-08T20:08:28","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T01:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=24680"},"modified":"2023-02-08T20:12:44","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T01:12:44","slug":"kings-lynn-woman-guilty-of-trying-to-hire-hitman-after-fling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/02\/08\/kings-lynn-woman-guilty-of-trying-to-hire-hitman-after-fling\/","title":{"rendered":"King’s Lynn woman guilty of trying to hire hitman after fling"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A woman who tried to hire a hitman to kill a former work colleague after a fling has been found guilty of soliciting murder.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Helen Hewlett, 44, of King’s Lynn in Norfolk, paid \u00a317,000 as a deposit to a website used for recruiting contract killers, her trial heard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She was arrested after police linked her to payments made to the site.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The court heard her target was a 50-year-old colleague with whom she had become infatuated after a brief affair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"DarkNorfolk Police issued this screengrab of the message placed on the website used by Helen Hewlett<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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(Image: Norfolk Police)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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 <\/p>\n

The jury was told Hewlett had placed an order on the dark web stating “need someone killed in Norfolk”, adding it was “vital it looks like an accident”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Hewlett and Paul Belton met when they worked at the Linda McCartney Frozen Food factory in Fakenham and had a kiss in his car.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Helen<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Helen Hewlett used the dark web to try to hire a killer to take out a man she had become obsessed with
\n(Image: Helen Hewlett \/ Twitter)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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 <\/p>\n

During the trial, Mr Belton said Hewlett had “become obsessed with him” and over a period of two years until August 2022 she bombarded him with emails and texts, urging him to meet her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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These included sexual images and videos of herself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Factory<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Hewlett became obsessed with a work colleague after they had a kiss in the Linda McCartney car park where they both worked<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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When Mr Belton left to work at the nearby Kinnerton chocolate factory, Hewlett managed to secure a job there too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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While at Kinnerton, the court heard Hewlett filed two complaints against Mr Belton to his employers, accusing him of harassment, homophobia and racial abuse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The firm told him there was no case to answer, and he was advised to go to the police.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Asked by prosecutor, Marti Blair, why he eventually went to the police, Mr Belton said: “I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted to be left alone.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Kinnerton<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Hewlett followed her victim to the Kinnerton factory, securing a job there, after he joined the firm<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The court heard the police visited Hewlett and she stopped trying to make contact with Mr Belton for a few days, but she resumed emailing soon afterwards saying she was “sorry”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Prior to posting the request on the website, Hewlett placed money into an escrow third-party account.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In her attempt to find a killer, she gave Mr Belton’s home and work address and other personal details, the court heard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Hewlett took out a number of loans to pay for the hitman but investigators were unable to say if the cash went to a potential hitman, or if the online killers market site was a scam.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Det<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Det Insp Paul Morton said it had been a complex case (Image: Robby West \/ BBC)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Following the verdict, Det Insp Paul Morton said: “This has been a very complex and technical trial with a huge amount of information to consider.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“This is a rare type of offence and it just shows the dark web is still not a safe place for criminals to hide.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The defendant was cleared of stalking, involving fear or violence to cause serious alarm or distress, but she was found guilty of a lesser charge of stalking, without serious alarm or distress, between January 2021 and August 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Hewlett is expected to be sentenced in April.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A woman who tried to hire a hitman to kill a former work colleague after a fling has been found guilty of soliciting murder. Helen Hewlett, 44, of King’s Lynn in Norfolk, paid \u00a317,000 as […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,4],"tags":[9198,3911,9199,9196,144,9197],"class_list":{"0":"post-24680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-uk","10":"tag-contract-killing","11":"tag-dark-web","12":"tag-fakenham","13":"tag-kings-lynn","14":"tag-norfolk","15":"tag-norfolk-police","16":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24680"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24684,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680\/revisions\/24684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}