Standing semi-naked in his messy bedroom with mismatching furniture and spluttering ‘What on earth is going on?’ as police officers surrounded him and told him he was under arrest, Gavin Plumb cut a pathetic figure.

Yet it was from this dingy ground floor flat that the obese shopping centre security guard, who rarely went out socially and had few friends, had masterminded the audacious kidnap of Holly Willoughby from her family home in London.

Leading a reclusive lifestyle, during which he spent ‘99.9 per cent’ of his waking hours online, he explored the darkest recesses of the internet to find like-minded obsessives and attempt to recruit them to his vile cause.

During his trial, Plumb, 37, would claim it was all ‘just online chat’ – a claim the jury rejected today by finding him guilty of all the charges – and say his disturbing behaviour, which included the attempted kidnap or false imprisonment of four women in three incidents in the mid-2000s, had its origins in his teens.

Plumb, who has three brothers and a half-brother, described how his reclusive behaviour and crippling self-doubt began when he hit puberty at 13 and his weight ballooned dramatically.

Gavin Plumb cut a pathetic figure when he was arrested at his dinghy ground-floor flat 

Plumb led a reclusive lifestyle, during which he spent ‘99.9 per cent’ of his waking hours online

During his trial, Plumb, 37, would claim it was all ‘just online chat’ – a claim the jury rejected today by finding him guilty of all the charges

‘I wasn’t able to go out with friends,’ he complained while giving evidence at Chelmsford Crown Court last week.

He also found himself constantly in the ‘friend zone’ with girls, instead of dating them like other boys.

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THE TRIAL: THE HOLLY WILLOUGHBY “PLOT” – The jury hear how Gavin Plumb allegedly assembled a kidnap kit of cable ties, rope and chloroform, and tried to find a “crew” in chat groups online to help him

Aged 18 he finally found himself in a long-term relationship with the mother of his two children, a boy and a girl.

But he claimed it was an ‘extremely toxic’ relationship, during which she constantly put him down and told him she could ‘do better’ – allegations she was not able to refute as she wasn’t called as a witness.

Astonishingly, Plumb would blame this unhealthy partnership on the offences he committed in 2006 and 2008. Playing the victim, he described them as a ‘cry for help’ and carried out in the hope jail time would allow him to escape his partner.

The earlier offences involved two incidents in the space of two days, when Plumb, whose job at the time involved checking parking tickets in railway car parks, tried to force two women off trains.

In the first incident he showed his victim a note in which he claimed he had a firearm. The woman escaped him when she started crying and fellow passengers came over. Plumb fled at the next stop.

In the second, he was found to have a cap gun in the pocket of his high-vis jacket when he was arrested at a station after the brave woman ignored his threats and alerted police.

Cable ties that Plumb kept in the kitchen drawer of his home in Harlow, Essex 

Plumb’s living room in a photo taken by police shortly after he was arrested 

He got away with a suspended sentence and, just two years later, Plumb brandished a knife and tried to tie up two 16-year-old colleagues at a branch of Woolworths in his hometown of Harlow, Essex. The girls escaped when one ran off and screamed for help.

Plumb served half of a 32-month jail term for the Woolworths offence and the ‘toxic’ relationship was over when he was released in 2010.

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Unable to find work, he ‘sofa surfed’ at family members’ homes and it was during this period that he started to spend an increasing amount of his time online.

Plumb told the jury he visited ‘different fantasy sites, football, some games’ and used this anonymous outlet to chat with other people, often about sex.

In 2013, he moved to Waltham Abbey where he claimed to have had a two-month relationship with a woman who was into bondage and sadomasochism, known as BDSM.

In court he said it was as a result of this relationship that he bought equipment including hand and ankle cuffs, a ring gag, cable ties and a cat o’ nine tails whip – which ended up not being used, he said.

The prosecution had a different version of events, explaining it was actually a ‘restraint kit’ that Plumb and his crew planned to use on Miss Willoughby, 43, after she was abducted from her home and taken to a secluded ‘dungeon-styler’ room where she would be ‘repeatedly raped’ and eventually killed before her body was dumped in a lake.

A court heard the 37-year-old – who liked to wear a Batman t-shirt – described it as his ‘ultimately fantasy’ to kidnap Ms Willoughby, adding: ‘Fantasy isn’t enough any more. I want the real thing’

Plumb, 37, struck up an online relationship with a man who turned out to be undercover police officer

Chloroform was added to the kit, the intention being to use it to subdue the then This Morning presenter and her husband, Dan Baldwin, 49, during the home invasion. The proximity of their children would be an ‘extra incentive for her to be obedient’.

Perhaps tellingly, former McDonalds and Pizza Hut worker Plumb has never named the BDSM fan. Challenged in court, he insisted it ‘wouldn’t be fair’ to reveal her identity.

The defendant’s weight soared to 35 stone at one point and he started live most of his life staring at computer or TV screens. His ‘celebrity crush’ on Miss Willoughby flourished as he was ‘watching [daytime] telly all the time’.

Plumb, who appeared on a BBC documentaries in 2016 and 2018 where he discussed his weight and its impact on his life, had a gastric sleeve fitted and lost a little weight.

He found work as a security guard at a Harlow shopping centre, in spite of his dangerous criminal past.

While outwardly upholding the law, Plumb was quietly amassing ‘millions’ of photos and videos of women, including more than 10,000 of Holly Willoughby and other female celebrities.

Many were deep fake porn, where their faces were seamlessly superimposed on the bodies of other women engaged in X-rated activities.

There were also AI avatars Plumb created – interactive likenesses of Miss Willoughby with whom he could be ‘as filthy as you want’.

A ‘restraint kit’ that was found at Plumb’s home  

He was also developing his murky online contacts through odious chatrooms. It was in such a room, called Abduct Lovers, on the Canadian messaging app Kik that he spent most of his time courting other Holly Willoughby fantasists and encouraging them to join his sick kidnap plot.

He told one ‘getting her has been my ultimate fantasy for way too long. I’m now at that point that fantasy isn’t enough anymore, I want the real thing’.

Plumb’s fanaticism was to be his downfall. Frustrated by several co-conspirators dropping out, he complained of them getting ‘cold feet’.

An individual called David Nelson then contacted him and expressed an interest in joining him in the repulsive venture.

Throwing caution to the wind, within a few hours Plumb had explained his plans, divulged information on Miss Willoughby’s home, movements and security arrangements, and sent a video of his ‘restraint kit’ to show he was serious.

But his new ally was an undercover US policeman using a pseudonym who was so concerned at the ‘imminent threat’ to Miss Willoughby that details were passed to the Metropolitan Police just a day later.

Plumb, whose son stayed with him in the flat on a regular basis, was arrested the same day – October 4 last year – and Miss Willoughby was informed of the plot moments before going on air the following morning. Severely rattled, she decided not to appear.

The security guard planned to kidnap, rape and murder Ms Willoughby

The shocking news followed a turbulent period on the ITV show, during which she and Phillip Schofield were accused of jumping the queue as the late Queen lay in state, and Schofield then left the show after admitting an affair with a younger colleague.

Miss Willoughby quit the programme days after the kidnap plot was revealed to her. After taking time to take stock, she resumed her career by appearing on Dancing on Ice in February, although, given the abhorrent threat she faced, her life will never be the same again.

Neither will Plumb’s. When he returns to court to be sentenced, he faces many years behind bars.