A primary school teacher's secret diary led police to uncover her partner's body buried in their garden, a court has heard.  Fiona Beal, 50, admits she stabbed her 42-year-old boyfriend Nicholas Billingham to death "in cold blood" before burying his body.

His partly mummified remains were discovered in March 2022 - four-and-a-half months after he was last seen. A jury at the Old Bailey heard on Friday that Beal has pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter by reason of a loss of control - but she denies she murdered Mr Billingham between 30 October and 10 November, 2021.

Opening her trial, prosecutor Hugh Davies KC said: "There is no dispute that she killed Nick Billingham, concealed his body where it was found and acted alone throughout. There is no dispute that she intended to kill him.

"She has accepted that she is guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter. She has pleaded guilty to that offence.

She does not accept she is guilty of murder. Her defence is based on a so-called partial defence to murder." Beal, from Northampton, was arrested in March 2022, after forensic officers and specialist teams were deployed to her address and found journal entries in which she revealed her actions.

She had also sent messages from Mr Billingham's phone pretending to be him, the court heard, in a move the prosecutor said was "as heartless as it was self-serving". Mr Davies told jurors that Beal, "a high-functioning professional.