Jailed for plot to murder girlfriend for the insurance money

Graham Burgess has been jailed for plotting to have his girlfriend murdered by a hit man. He employed a man to kill his long-term partner so he could get his hands on a payout from her insurance policy. However, he chose his killer poorly.

The 46-year-old lorry driver, from Kidsgrove in Staffordshire, owed £112,000 and the bailiffs had started calling. He also had a secret mistress, so was ready to move on romantically. The solution he came up with was taking out a joint life insurance policy with Alison Trigg, who had been his girlfriend for the previous 20 years, and then murdering her.

However, his plan had one fatal flaw - he told his friends about it in the pub beforehand. The plot was overheard by another pub-goer, who called the police.

Burgess continued with his plan unawares. He arranged to pay a man £10,000 to kill Trigg. He gave him a photo of her and details of her walk to work. He then said he wanted his "Mrs doing" and suggested a hit-and-run. Unfortunately for him after the police had been informed, they sent an undercover policeman to make contact with him, and the man he thought he had hired was actually a police officer who was recording their conversations.

Trigg was informed on the morning of the intended murder, and Burgess was arrested later that day. He was jailed for six years.

Detective Superintendent Dave Mellor, head of Staffordshire Police's Major and Organised Crime Department, said in a statement: "This is a very rare, unusual case. Burgess was very dependant on his partner's income and had accumulated huge debts without her knowledge, including re mortgaging the house."

"As our investigation progressed it became clear that Burgess had spent considerable time thinking about how he could dispose of his partner. He knew her daily routine and decided with precise derail when, where and how his plan was to be carried out."

"His plans to have his partner killed were prevented as he recruited and paid an undercover operative to carry out the deed. There is no doubt he knew what he was doing and he has shown no remorse for his actions."

Insurance plot
He's not the first criminal to have been caught out when trying to cash in on a life insurance policy. Perhaps the most famous example in the UK was the so-called canoe couple. John and Anne Darwin had been facing bankruptcy when they came up with a plan to collect £250,000 from John's life insurance policy. Anne convinced police, friends, and even her two sons, that John had drowned while canoeing in the North Sea off Teeside in 2002. However, he reappeared in a London police station in 2007, claiming to have lost his memory. An investigation revealed he had spent four years living in secret in the couple's house.%VIRTUAL-SkimlinksPromo%