An undercover police officer posed as a gangster to win the trust of a man suspected of murdering a former partner and disposing of her body almost a decade earlier, in the hope that he would confess to the crime, a jury had been told.
The officer, working under the pseudonym Paddy O’Hara, befriended Darren Osment over 20 months and eventually the suspect confided that he had “done horrible fucking shit” and that his ex Claire Holland would “not see the light of day again”, Bristol crown court heard.
During the undercover operation, the police designed pieces of “theatre” to convince Osment that O’Hara was a criminal. The officer switched number plates on a supposedly stolen lorry, buried a firearm and said he had killed a man in Belfast. Other undercover officers played “bit-part roles” in the gang of which O’Hara was meant to be a member.
Osment began to open up to O’Hara, revealing a “deep hatred” for Holland, the jury heard. Once, during a dog walk near the Severn estuary, Osment tapped O’Hara on the shoulder, nodded towards the water and suggested Holland’s body was “halfway to Spain”, it was alleged.
On another occasion, Osment, a chef, informed O’Hara he had used “knife skills” to cut Holland’s body and said the corpse had been weighted and “wasn’t going to come floating up”.
Andrew Langdon KC, prosecuting, told the jury that Osment and Holland had a son together in 2010 and the relationship soured, with the defendant blaming his partner when the child was taken into care and they separated.
Holland vanished after leaving a pub in Bristol in June 2012 when she was 32, the court was told. She has never been found and the trail went cold.
In July 2019, Osment phoned police and said he wanted to hand himself in for murdering Holland but later claimed he had made up the confession so he would be taken into custody because he was feeling suicidal.
Police began tracing Osment’s friends and found that in 2014 he allegedly confessed to a fellow worker that he had thrown Holland’s body into the water off Avonmouth Docks after strangling her. When asked why, he was said to have replied: “No stupid bitch is going to keep me away from my boy.”
He allegedly repeatedly threatened a woman with whom he had relationship after Holland’s disappearance and told her it would be easy to get rid of her body. The court was told he confided to a man he was drinking with in a pub: “I paid someone £500 to have the mother of my child executed.”
In 2020 the police mounted an undercover operation to see what Osment might tell them about Holland and put O’Hara into an address 300 metres from where he was living. O’Hara posed as someone selling counterfeit or stolen clothing and offered Osment casual work.
Langdon said: “As planned, the relationship became less about business and more about friendship. Mr Osment began to confide in Paddy. They spent a lot of time socialising, eating, drinking and playing pool. Paddy paid for most of it. By and large Paddy just listened.”
The jury was told that Osment had an “explosive temper” and it was challenging at times for O’Hara to make sure that the man he had “befriended” did not to cause serious harm to others. The jury was told that O’Hara discovered that Osment carried a claw hammer and a Stanley knife on occasions and had an electric hammer plugged in near his front door that he said he intended to use if the police came for him.
Osment told O’Hara that on the night of Holland’s disappearance he “lured” her to the pub she was working in, the jury heard. There was no CCTV. He burned “aprons and bits and pieces” outside.
The court was told that according to Langdon, Osment made another confession while he was waiting for his trial, allegedly telling a fellow prison inmate that he had strangled Holland and “got rid” of the body.
Osment, 41, from south Gloucestershire, denies murder. The trial continues.
