ROB Parkes was left horrified when he discovered that his ex-wife had plotted to manipulate a series of men into murdering him.
Here we take a look at the woman responsible, Victoria Breeden, and where she is now.
Who is Victoria Breeden?
Victoria Breeden, dubbed the ''Black Widow'', is from Littleport, Cambridgeshire.
In 2004, Breeden married Rob Parkes after the pair met at university in 1999.
But the couple separated in 2008 and Mr Parkes was granted custody of a child in 2014 "following protracted proceedings in the family courts".
That same year, Mr Parkes' world fell apart when detectives discovered a secret phone recording of his former partner plotting to have him murdered so she could get custody of their teenage daughter, Grace.
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What happened to Victoria Breeden's ex-husband Rob Parkes?
Rob Parkes was left horrified when he discovered that his ex-wife tried six times to hire a hitman to kill him.
On New Years Day 2014, police arrived at Rob's home address in Milton Keynes.
The officers had come to check that his family — new wife Jane and daughter Grace, who he had sole custody of after a long court battle with his ex — were ok.
The visit came after police has been alerted by a 999 call — supposedly from Rob – reporting a car fire at the house, however, the call was a hoax.
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But at 5.30am the following morning, Rob woke to the sound of his car alarm going off followed by a roaring popping, crackling noise – and soon discovered that someone had set fire to the family’s Audi A3 car.
After fleeing from the property, Rob suspected Victoria and her new husband, ex-soldier Wayne Wood, were behind the attack.
Rob explained: ''She convinced Wayne I was a drug dealer and a paedophile and used him as a weapon to get at me and my family.”
Wood, who was responsible for making the hoax call, was jailed for seven years for arson.
Breeden was freed by police as they could not link her to the attack on the car.
However, Rob's ex was determined to have him murdered.
She had hidden more than £18,500 in cans at her Littleport home to pay any of the men she could manipulate into attempting to kill Rob – unbeknown to her then-husband of six years.
Mr Parkes said: "There were six guys through the years and some came closer than others.”
In 2019, Breeden began a new relationship with Graham Wall, a man she met on a dating site, and he soon began to express his worries after she asked if he could put her in touch with a hitman.
Breeden told him: ''If you can’t do that then you’re no use to me.''
This led Wall to suspect Breeden was having an affair, and as a result he went to work and left his phone hidden under the stairs on record.
The phone picked up a chilling conversation — Breeden asking former drug dealer Earl Gernon if he could arrange to kill her ex-husband.
On the audio recording they discuss having Rob kicked to death in Thetford Forest, Norfolk, or attacking his car to lure him out of the house before smashing him over the head with a brick.
Gernon told her any other method would be “very, very expensive”.
Horrified by the audio that he had discovered, Wall handed the phone to Cambridgeshire police.
Amazingly, Breeden walked into Ely police station in a bid to retrieve the phone, along with its incriminating evidence, resulting in her arrest.
When the case went to court in March 2020, Breeden claimed she was just “joking” and “wasn’t serious” when she spoke about hiring hitmen to carry out the attack.
By an incredible twist of fate, millions of TV viewers watchingthe Channel 4 documentary 24 Hours In Police Custody: Black Widow actually saw the moment police informed sales director Rob that his ex, Victoria Breeden, wanted him dispatched by a hired killer.
In July 2023, Rob told The Sun: ''On the TV recording, you can see me nod and pause for a couple of seconds.
“I look calm, composed and in control, if a little shocked.
“What no one else realised though was that my brain had decided that right then would be a good time to check out and have a brief holiday. I wasn’t calm, I was vacant.
“I could see the policeman’s mouth moving and I knew he was still talking, but I wasn’t paying attention.
“The whole situation just didn’t seem real. Not remotely real.
“The mental strain was just too immense and overwhelming for me to cope with.
“Looking back at that footage on 24 Hours In Police Custody, I was sipping a completely empty cup of tea.”
Where is Victoria Breeden now?
Just before lockdown in early 2020 Victoria Breeden was found guilty of three counts of conspiracy to murder and jailed for nine and a half years.
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She was sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court in 2020, following an eight-day trial.
Gernon was charged with conspiracy to murder but the charges were later dropped.
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