Mental health authorities will face questions over how Theodore Johnson, who had killed two previous partners, was able to hide a 20-year relationship

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A garage worker who killed three of his partners over four decades has been jailed for life with a minimum of 26 years for the “brutal and merciless” murder of his most recent victim.

Theodore Johnson, 64, bludgeoned Angela Best with a claw hammer and strangled her with a dressing gown cord a couple of months after the couple ended their 20-year relationship.

Johnson had two previous convictions for manslaughter for killing two other former partners, in 1981 and 1993. After the attack in 1993, he was detained in a secure hospital but conditionally discharged in 1997.

Mental health authorities will now face questions over how he was able to hide a 20-year relationship from them despite regular visits to his home in north London.

Sentencing Johnson, the judge, the common serjeant of London, Richard Marks QC, said such repeated offending, resulting in three separate court cases, “must be almost unprecedented”. He said the requirement to report relationships would have been “crystal clear” to Johnson.

“For many years of your relationship with Angela Best it is clear that you repeatedly withheld this information from your supervisors with whom you met on a regular basis.”

Marks gave a number of examples of when Johnson denied being in a relationship to his medical and social supervisors – in 2006, 2011, 2015 and as recently as the month he murdered Best.

“One of the consequences of these lies is that the authorities were not in a position to tell Ms Best about your past,” he said.

Best ultimately discovered by chance details of Johnson’s past after discovering letters that detailed one of the killings, prompting him to reveal both of his previous convictions.

Marks said Best’s family remain “utterly destroyed and devastated” by the murder.

“It’s clear ... she was an exceptional woman,” he said. “It’s clear that family will never be the same again.” Marks said Johnson attacked Best in the most brutal fashion. “The nature and ferocity of your attack leaves me in no doubt whatsoever that your intention was to kill her,” he said.



During the sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey, the court heard that one of the conditions of his release was to inform authorities if he entered a relationship.

Johnson’s defence barrister, Annette Henry QC, said he had deliberately not told authorities he was in a relationship with Best.

Henry said concerns had been raised about the “self-reporting” nature of the condition, including by the mental health tribunal that oversaw his release.

And on at least one occasion, mental health staff failed to follow up on suspicions he was seeing a woman after seeing a “feminine carving” of the word “love” on the mantelpiece of his home in Dartmouth Park Hill, Henry said.

But Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust later denied this, saying they questioned Johnson further but he continued to deny he was or had been in a relationship.

The judge said that had Johnson revealed the relationship, Best, a mother of four who lived in Tottenham, may still be alive.

Mark Heywood QC, prosecuting, told the court Johnson subjected Best to a “brutal and merciless” attack when she visited his flat in December 2016. The couple had recently separated at the time of the murder and Best had started a relationship with another man. Family described her as being the happiest she had ever been.

“He did it because after all that time that had gone before, she was no longer prepared to remain with him. She had recently met another man and begun a new chapter in her life,” Heywood said. “The defendant was not prepared to live with that or without her.”

Hours after killing her, Johnson threw himself in front of a train at Cheshunt railway station in Hertfordshire, losing both his arms. Slumped in a wheelchair in grey prison-issue clothing in the dock, Johnson looked to the floor throughout the hearing, with Best’s family, including her sisters, looking on.

Johnson was born in Jamaica where he grew up as one of 11 children working on a banana plantation. He moved to the UK in 1980 with his wife, Yvonne Johnson, who he killed in 1981 after an argument. He hit her with a vase before pushing her off the balcony of their ninth-floor flat in Wolverhampton. He was convicted at Stafford crown court in November that year.

After his release he went on to kill Yvonne Bennett 11 years later, strangling her with a belt at their home in Finsbury Park, north London.

In March 1993, at the Old Bailey he was convicted of killing Bennett by diminished responsibility. He was suffering from a depressive illness and personality disorder and was handed a secure hospital order.

In 1994, a period of both unescorted and escorted release commenced, the court heard. In 1996, his application to a mental health tribunal for a conditional discharge was refused. He applied again in 1997 and his application was approved, although he was ordered to disclose all future relationships.

But Johnson and Best had already started a relationship by that point.

Henry, defending, said: “The most important condition was not complied with,” she said. “Mr Johnson did not at any stage inform any individual in any authority about the relationship he had started with Best.”

The judge asked why, to which Henry replied: “There is no good answer to that. He deliberately did not report it.”

But she added there were “lessons to be learned” about self-reporting.

The judge said: “If he had reported the relationship as he knew he should have done we might not be here today.”

Henry told the court that Johnson did not want to continue living.

“He hates himself for what has happened,” she said. “Mr Johnson will lead a miserable existence. It’s doubtful he will be released alive from any sentence and it’s highly likely he will die in prison.”

Reading a victim impact statement on behalf of Best’s sister, Valerie Archibald, Heywood said: “The shock still remains and the loss is traumatising, immense, profound and utter devastation.

“She was a truly beautiful, gentle, loving, wonderful, fun, youthful, generous, loyal person, the life and soul of our family unit.”

Another statement from her son, Fabian Collins, said: “I now hate life.”

Collins said he remains living in his mother’s flat and struggles to stop thinking about her. “My mum is the only person who understood me fully because we were so alike,” he said.

Outside the Old Bailey, Lorraine Jones, Best’s sister, gave a statement on behalf of the family, saying: “She was the heartbeat of our family.”

Referring to Johnson, Jones said: “This convicted murderer tried to play the system as he has successfully done two times before. He used ‘diminished responsibility’ as the cause of his murderous actions. This time, however, by eventually pleading guilty to murder 12 months after his arrest ... he has shown in all cases he was clearly of sound mind. He knew exactly what he was doing when he plotted and executed the horrific murder of our beautiful and beloved Angela.”

Camden and Islington NHS trust, which provided care to Johnson, is to commission an independent report into its contact with Johnson. The trust, which began providing care to the 64-year-old in December 2004, said Johnson had been “seen in compliance with the conditions imposed by the mental health tribunal who oversaw his earlier discharge”.

“Following the conclusion of legal proceedings, we will be sharing with Ms Best’s family the trust’s own independently chaired report into the care provided,” the trust said.





• This article was amended on 7 January 2018.An earlier version referred to Richard Marks QC as the colour serjeant of London, when common serjeant was meant.