Copyright walesonline
The owner of the holiday park rushed to the caravan where armed intruders had reportedly burst in and assaulted someone. But when she arrived the victim's wife was sat calmly on the sofa scrolling on her phone. Something was "odd". It's not known exactly what was going through the wife's mind as she sat there fiddling, but the plan to murder her husband had just gone wrong. And the man she was having an affair with had fled into the night. The subsequent police investigation revealed an astonishing tale of the murderous plot which played out that night - a story which even detectives says has "all the makings of a TV drama". On the evening of September 20 last year Christopher and Michelle Mills were in their caravan at the Argoed Meadow camping and caravan site in Cenarth near Newcastle Emlyn. They had eaten a meal and watched a documentary about the Titanic on the television, and by around 11.30pm they were preparing for bed. Then came a knock at the door. Many of the people with pitches on the site knew each other, and though the hour was late it was not unknown for neighbours to call from time to time. When Mr Mills answered the knock he was confronted by two men dressed in dark clothes, wearing balaclavas, and brandishing handguns. Mr Mills would later describe the men as looking like you might imagine IRA terrorists from the TV to look. The first raider immediately struck Mr Mills to the face with his weapon and shouted "Get back!" and then a struggle ensued as the three men struggled on the floor of the caravan. During the tussle Mr Mills tried to gouge the eyes of one of the men and was able to grab the gun being brandishing by the second man and turn the weapon on the assailant. He then managed to squeeze the man's gun hand so the trigger activated - the weapon "clicked" but did not fire. Mr Mills would later tell the trial of those accused of conspiring to murder him that as he struggled with the intruders he was "fighting for my life". During the fight Mr Mills shouted to his 46-year-old wife and asked her to give him a knife - she did not hand him a weapon but stepped outside to get a signal for her phone. After a violent struggle Mr Mills was able to disarm both raiders who then ran from the caravan and disappeared into the darkness. He had no idea who the intruders were nor what they had wanted but assumed they were robbers who might have been after his Mini Cooper S car which was parked outside. In her 999 call Mrs Mills told the police she had no idea why the incident had happened but suggested it could be linked to the fact that her husband had been in the military. Mr Mills joined his wife on the phone and told police they needed to send an armed response. The owner of the site, who lived nearby, was alerted to what had happened and rushed to the caravan where she found the couple. Mrs Mills was sat on the sofa in the lounge area playing with her phone. Meanwhile multiple police units including firearms officers, dog handlers, and a helicopter were dispatched to the scene. While ground and air units began a search of the countryside around the caravan park for what were believed to be armed robbers on the run, other officers went to the caravan where they seized the two handguns which Mr Mills had taken off the intruders. With the scene of the crime secured, Mr and Mills were taken to Newcastle Emlyn police station where they gave statements about what had just happened before being allowed to go home to Llangennech near Llanelli in the early hours of the morning of September 21. At that stage Mr Mills still believed he had been the victim of an attempted robbery. His wife knew he had escaped from what was supposed to be a deadly ambush. Meanwhile the two intruders had been caught hiding in bushes near the caravan site after the aircrew on the police helicopter detected them on a thermal imaging camera and directed armed officers and dog handlers to the location. The two men - former servicemen Geraint Maverick Berry, aged 46, and 47-year-old Steven Thomas - were arrested on suspicion of aggravated burglary and taken to Aberystwyth police station. Berry's phone was seized, and it was what detectives found on the device which was to turn the investigation on its head. Christopher Mills had served 28 years in the British Army before leaving and joining Alabare, a charity which supports homeless veterans. It was through his work that he met the woman who would become his wife and who would later plan to get him killed. Michelle Mills worked for the mental health charity Links which worked alongside Alabare and the pair began seeing each other before marrying in 2018 and setting up home in Llangennech. Mr Mills subsequently left Alabare and joined Help for Heroes while his partner moved from Links to Alabare, starting as a support officer then quickly becoming manager for the south Wales area. Colleagues would later report that she sometimes complained to them about her husband Christopher, with one saying he thought she was unhappy with her life. One of the veterans on the Alabare books was Berry, a former solider who lived at the charity's accommodation at Clos Coffa in Clydach in the Swansea Valley. In the summer of 2024 Michelle Mills and Berry began a secret affair, a relationship Mills herself would later admit was not appropriate given their professional relationship and what she knew about Berry's mental health vulnerabilities. Extensive text messages found on Berry's phone following his arrest showed that shortly after the affair began, the pair began professing their love for each other and their desire to be together in the future. And discussing killing Christopher Mills. During the text chats the pair discussed various ways they could could get rid of Mr Mills from putting foxgloves in his salad or antifreeze in the gravy to smothering him with a pillow, putting ground up sleeping pills in his drink, or getting a "hit" put on him. In one text Berry told Mills they could watch Mr Mills die together then carry on with their weekend. In the texts Mills claimed to have "boys" who would do the job for him, and when Mills expressed concern that she or Berry might get "tied" to what had happened, Berry assured her they would not. Berry also discussed ways of making the death look like suicide, and asked Mills about the gas supply on the Cenarth caravan. Mills told Berry she needed "him [her husband] gone one way or another" so she and Berry could "move forward" together. During the text conversations between the lovers Mills made a series of allegations about the physical and emotional abuse she was said she was suffering and at the hands of her husband - and Berry would response with messages saying he hated Mr Mills and how wanted him dead. That summer Berry bought two second-hand BB airsoft handguns in a private sale from the owner of a military and survival equipment stall in Swansea Market. He later asked the owner of the stall if he could get hold of a Glock gun with a suppressor and live ammunition for him, and asked if he knew how to male a Mini Cooper S "go boom" when the ignition was turned on. The stall owner said he could not help him. At the subsequent trial the stall owner said Berry had claimed to be a former Royal Marines sniper who had killed "thousands" of people during his career. He said a lot of former servicemen attended his stall over the years and it was not unusual for them to exaggerate their service- he said squaddies tended to be "braggadocios". He said he didn't believe Berry's claims about his military career and called him "a bit of a fantasist but mostly harmless". It was into this situation that Thomas arrived - a former RAF serviceman from Neath who had left the air force with post-traumatic stress disorder and who moved into a flat in the same veterans accommodation in Clydach as Berry. Shortly after he moved in, Thomas found the body of his brother who had taken his own life and, by his own admission, the death of his sibling "ruined" him. Following the death he began spending more time at his sister's house and less time in Clydach. Thomas has described Berry as "intimidating". On the nights of August 28 and 29 Thomas drove Berry to the Cenarth caravan site - on the first trip they were accompanied by another, unidentified, male while on the second it was just Berry and Thomas in the car. It is now known what those trips to west Wales were for nor what Berry did at the site. On his own account Thomas believed he was giving Berry a lift because Berry intended to "give someone a hiding" in relations to an alleged act against a family member. Thomas says he did not leave the car on either occasion. And then came the night of Friday, September 20. That evening Thomas drove from his sister's house to pick up Berry from Clydach. Berry told Thomas to put on dark-coloured clothing and then he texted Michelle Mills to say he was on his way.She replied saying that she was encouraging her partner to drink in the hopes he would fall asleep. The men's car was picked up on automatic number plate recognition cameras as it made its way from Swansea to Cross Hands and then onto the Newcastle Emlyn area. When they arrived in Cenarth, Berry texted Mills to say they had arrived. Berry then handed Thomas a balaclava and one of the airsoft guns he had previously purchased. And then Berry knocked on the caravan door. It's not possible to say exactly what was planned for Mr Mills that night but the contents of Berry's rucksack are revealing - two gas masks, wrist and ankle restraints made from cable ties, and a fake suicide note supposedly written by Mr Mills and addressed to his wife. In it he apologised "for everything I have done to you" and saying "by the time you get this letter I'll be gone because I can't live with myself cause every time I look at you I can see I have hurt you". Whatever was planned, it went wrong. As Berry and Thomas fled into the night Michelle Mills texted Berry to let him know the police had been called and telling he should get away. She said her husband had not recognised him and said she would not say anything. She also told him to delete all communications with her, and said she loved him. Following the arrest of Berry and Mills and the examination of Berry's phone, the robbery investigation became a conspiracy to murder investigation. Mills was arrested at the family home in Maes Ty Gwyn the day after the failed ambush. On arrest she told officers "I'm going to prison for this, aren't I?". You can watch police bodycam footage of Mills being arrested here. Mills, Berry and Thomas were all subsequently charged with conspiracy to murder which they denied, and the case went to trial at Swansea Crown Court . In her evidence Mills insisted the text conversations with Berry had been an "elaborate fantasy" and an "escape" from her real life. She insisted she at no time wanted her husband harmed or killed, and said she just wanted a divorce. She called Berry a "fantasist" and said she never believed the "tall tales" he told, but she said he made her feel safe and she described him as being "like a teddy bear" who "didn't have it in him to hurt anyone". She denied that she had been provoking Berry's jealous side or trying to "wind him up" with lies about her husband's behaviour knowing her lover was "smitten" with her. Berry chose not to give evidence. In his evidence Thomas said he knew nothing about any murder plot and did not know who the person in caravan was. He accepted driving to Cenarth and taking part in the incident at the caravan but said he had been intimidated by Berry at a time when he just wanted to be left alone to grieve his brother. After deliberating for three hours the jury found Mills and Berry guilty of conspiracy to murder, and Thomas not guilty. The jury also convicted Mills of attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to an account she gave to police in the hours following the incident. Berry and Thomas had pleaded guilty to possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence before the trial started. All three defendants will be sentenced on December 19. Speaking after the verdicts, Dyfed-Powys Police detective inspector Sam Gregory said it was digital evidence which had prove crucial in a case she said had "all the makings of a TV drama". She said: "The communication between Mills and Berry that we were able to retrieve made it clear that since the end of June 2024, the pair had embarked on a secret relationship. In a short period of time, Berry, encouraged by Mills, became increasingly occupied by hostile thoughts about her husband, and the pair had communicated a number of ways in which they could kill him. "Despite these conversations, Mills claimed she thought these plans were just fantasy and that their ideas would never be acted on. "Berry and Mills had previously discussed using gas to kill Mr Mills, while making it look like he had taken his own life. Berry had asked Mills where the boiler was, and he and Thomas carried gas masks that would have protected themselves while Mr Mills suffocated. "No explanation has been given by any of the three defendants for the fake suicide note or the gas masks in the rucksack. What’s clear is that these were not being used to frighten Mr Mills – they were there to set up a fake suicide. "I am pleased that Michelle Mills and Geraint Berry have now been found guilty of conspiracy to murder, and that they will be suitably sentenced for their part in their plans to kill Mr Mills. "While this case has all the makings of a TV drama, at the heart of it was a very real conspiracy to take someone’s life, and there were potentially fatal consequences to the planned attack on September 20. "Mills and Barry had plotted not one, not two, but three attempts to take Mr Mills’ life, and I have no doubt that they would have continued to come up with these plans had they not been caught that night. They will now face the consequences of their actions." She added: "I would like to thank all the officers and staff who worked on this investigation, and gathered strong evidence to secure these convictions, as well as Mr Mills for his integrity and cooperation throughout the criminal justice process."
