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The family home in Lydhurst Road, Hampstead |
Anger of the killer who lost struggle to be ordinary
It was a happy home, then Michael Johnson lost his mother, his marriage failed and, on anti-epilepsy drugs, he battered his art historian father
CLOSE friends of a leading art historian killed by his son have revealed how the relationship between the two men broke down, leading to an unimaginable tragedy.
Professor Lee Johnson, 81, was battered unconscious by his son Michael and left to die as his Hampstead home burned. The frail writer had told friends he feared his son would kill him.
As Michael Johnson, 49, was convicted of manslaughter at the Old Bailey on Monday, it emerged Camden’s social services and police had recommended Professor Johnson use a panic alarm but the advice was not taken.
A council spokeswoman said: “Professor Lee Johnson’s death was a deeply shocking tragedy. We did what we could to protect him, including calling the police in for advice, but he wanted to continue to see his son alone. Neither the council nor the police could stop that.”
She added that social workers visited him daily and helped with shopping once a week.
Michael Johnson, described this week as a “mama’s boy”, was said to have blamed his father for the breakdown of his marriage to one of the professor’s carers and for a life ravaged by severe epilepsy.
The Old Bailey heard that Johnson, 49, an unemployed musician, claimed his father was mean in giving him only a £250-a-month allowance. His denial of murder was accepted. The Recorder of London, Judge Peter Beaumont, will sentence him on Monday to indefinite detention under the Mental Health Act.
Johnson also admitted assaults on two nurses at Pentonville Prison, where he was held on remand, and was said to be suffering from “organic” brain damage.
As the secrets of the case were revealed, neighbours in Lyndhurst Road were left shocked. They revealed how a once-happy home was held together by Johnson’s “linchpin” mother Michelle, who named the property Landau House and decorated it with roses along the wall.
Things fell apart after her sudden death in 2002. Johnson was put on new medication but while it “lifted the lid on his emotions”, according to one neighbour who knew the family well, it left him feeling “volatile”.
The anti-epilepsy drugs – one of which was named as Keppra in court – were blamed by his friends for turning him from a man who went to bed religiously at 7pm to a frustrated musician who was heard singing Bob Dylan songs all night.
The father-and-son relationship grew worse with Johnson’s doomed marriage to his father‘s carer.
One neighbour, who described herself as a “sister figure” to Johnson, said he blamed his father for holding him back in life.
“He was angry about a lot of things,” she said. “He felt his father didn’t want him to go far, he felt really responsible. He always felt he’d never achieved anything. His mother was also very overprotective because of the epilepsy.”
She said his failed marriage, which ended after a few months, dashed a dream to have children. “The sad thing is all he wanted was a family himself. He loved children,” she said. “He was like someone struggling to be ordinary.”
At the Old Bailey, during a brief hearing, Sir Allan Green, QC, prosecuting, said Johnson had never worked and lived in a flat provided by his father opposite the family home.
Johnson, the court heard, launched a “severe and sustained” attack on his father in July 2006 and left him lying beside his Zimmer frame with 90 per cent burns. “He blamed his father for everything,” said Sir Allan.
The house was torched after Johnson stabbed himself with a meat thermometer and “lay down to die” near the front door.
Both father and son were rescued alive by firemen but Professor Johnson, whose skin was peeling off, died soon afterwards at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. His son was not badly injured.
The victim, housebound and in very poor health, was considered the world’s leading authority on the French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix.
He wrote many books and won prizes and acclaim among art historians.
Professor Paul Joannides, a history of art don at Cambridge University and one of Professor Johnson’s friends, put the tragedy down to the killer’s chaotic marriage and the death of his beloved mother. He described Johnson as a “mama’s boy”, adding: “It’s tragic and ghastly. He was unbalanced and took it out on the person who was most vulnerable and nearest to him.
“I suspect Michael was living fairly near to the edge and the break-up pushed him over. He got married a year before Lee’s death and that marriage went south very quickly. I think that, according to Lee himself, Michael blamed Lee for the break-up of the marriage.”
He added: “Michael was very fond of his mother and less fond of his father and after she died it was a terrible blow. She was probably the person who protected him most and when she died it thrust a great deal of responsibility onto Michael that he wasn’t able to handle.”
Johnson’s motivation for the killing has divided friends of the family. Professor Joannides, while accepting the attack was not premeditated, said blaming the epilepsy drug was a “botched defence”. But a neighbour said “there’s no way he was an out-and-out killer” and another friend living close by said Johnson “revered” his father and, if in his right mind, would never have hurt him. She said his father’s courageous battle with a rare blood disease, Churg-Strauss Syndrome, had inspired him.
Despite his crippling illness, which left him in a wheelchair, Professor Johnson took his wife’s ashes back to her native village in France.
The Professor was looked after by a team of carers and rarely left his bed on the first floor of his house. Camden social services began to monitor him and gave him a special alarm because of fears for his safety.
The Old Bailey heard how he told friends that his “rude and aggressive” son had beaten him up several times and forecast that he would one day kill him. Despite this, he continued to try to help, refusing to press charges against Johnson and telling a neighbour: “He’s my son. What can I do?”
On one occasion, Johnson pressed a pillow over his face and asked: “Do you want me to suffocate you?”.
Johnson accused him of being “queer” and described him as “an understudy to Anthony Blunt” – the art expert and soviet spy.
He told friends there were “a hundred and one” reasons for him hating his father who had become “his enemy”.
But when two “counsellors” assessed Johnson’s mental state in September 2005 “they found he was of sound mind”, said Sir Allan, as he laid out the case.
The court heard that towards the end of 2005 the behaviour became “more and more irrational and aggressive”.
On the day of the killing, Johnson was seen by a neighbour entering the house at 9am. An hour later smoke was pouring from the upstairs window of his father’s room. Professor Johnson was found naked and barely alive by a fireman who had to crawl across the floor to locate him. He had been battered, punched and stamped on. His son had told the rescue team: “I want to die.”
Another neighbour, who had known the family for 15 years, said on Tuesday that on the day of the killing Johnson was let into his father’s home by a carer. The neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: “That day the carer let Micheal in – or perhaps Lee said ‘let him in’ – and she left them together as she went to get some shopping from Budgens. That was why they were alone together. I don’t think Lee wanted to be alone with him. Perhaps it had to do with money – Michael had a strange way of looking at things.”
She said Johnson was devastated by the death of his “linchpin” mother, who “kept things on an even keel,” and that while he had coped with his father’s care initially, things went downhill after his marriage. Neighbours said his Bulgarian wife, who was younger than him, pressured him for money.
Nigel Lithman, QC, defending, told the Old Bailey several leading psychiatrists had examined Johnson, now in Chase Farm Hospital, in Enfield. Lifetime epileptic seizures and the side-effects of drugs to combat his convulsions had left him deeply disturbed, isolated and damaged.
One neighbour described Johnson and his father as vulnerable people let down by social services. She said Johnson had been visiting a Camden mental health unit.
“I believe there were people not doing their job. They let Lee Johnson and his son down,” she said. “Why was I always worried something was going to happen and they weren’t? My daughter’s father went to visit him and came back saying ‘that isn’t a well man’ – why couldn’t they see that?”
She added: “Did they increase the drug dosage? Did they do something to trigger it? The man I knew would never have done that. He was proud of the way his father overcame his disability after his mother died. He revered him and respected him. I’ll never get my head around the fact that Michael went in there and killed his dad with no feeling. I’ll never believe he did it in his right mind.”
Mr Lithman said that heavy doses of Keppra, which was first prescribed in September 2004, had dangerous consequences for Johnson and his father. His epilepsy had always “blighted his life”, he added.
His fatal attack did not result from any financial motive, said Mr Lithman.
Speaking yesterday (Wednesday) from France, a friend, Dr Frances Jowell, described Professor Johnson’s death as “a sad loss”.
She added: “He was a very fine scholar and he made a huge contribution to the study of artist Delacroix. He was renowned internationally. He was charming, very helpful and he was always happy to advise.”
Free Hospital in Hampstead. His son was not badly injured.
The victim, housebound and in very poor health, was considered the world’s leading authority on the French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix. He wrote many books and won prizes and acclaim among art historians.
Professor Paul Joannides, a history of art don at Cambridge University and one of Professor Johnson’s friends, put the tragedy down to the killer’s chaotic marriage and the death of his mother. He described Johnson as a “mama’s boy”, adding: “It’s tragic and ghastly. He was unbalanced and took it out on the person who was most vulnerable and nearest to him.
“I suspect Michael was living fairly near the edge and the break-up pushed him over. He got married a year before Lee’s death and that marriage went south very quickly. I think that, according to Lee himself, Michael blamed Lee for the break-up of the marriage.”
He added: “Michael was very fond of his mother and less fond of his father and after she died it was a terrible blow. She was probably the person who protected him most and when she died it thrust a great deal of responsibility onto Michael that he wasn’t able to handle.”
Johnson’s motivation for the killing has divided friends of the family. Professor Joannides, while accepting the attack was not premeditated, said blaming the epilepsy drug was a “botched defence”. But a neighbour said of Michael: “There’s no way he was an out-and-out killer”. Another friend said Johnson “revered” his father and, if in his right mind, would never have hurt him. She said his father’s courageous battle with a rare blood disease, Churg-Strauss Syndrome, had inspired him.
Despite his crippling illness, which left him in a wheelchair, Professor Johnson took his wife’s ashes back to her native village in France.
The professor was looked after by a team of carers and rarely left his bed on the first floor of his house. Camden social services monitored him and gave him a special alarm because of fears for his safety.
The Old Bailey heard how he told friends that his “rude and aggressive” son had beaten him up several times and forecast that he would one day kill him. Despite this, he continued to try to help, refusing to press charges against Johnson and telling a neighbour: “He’s my son. What can I do?” On one occasion, Johnson pressed a pillow over his face and asked: “Do you want me to suffocate you?”
Johnson accused his father of being “queer” and described him as “an understudy to Anthony Blunt”, the art expert and soviet spy.
He told friends there were “a hundred and one” reasons for him hating his father who had become “his enemy”. But when two counsellors assessed Johnson’s mental state in September 2005 “they found he was of sound mind”, said Sir Allan.
The court heard that towards the end of 2005 Johnson’s behaviour became “more and more irrational and aggressive”. On the day of the killing, he was seen by a neighbour entering the house at 9am. An hour later smoke was pouring from the upstairs window of his father’s room. Professor Johnson was found naked and barely alive by a fireman who had to crawl across the floor to locate him. He had been battered, punched and stamped on. His son had told the rescue team: “I want to die.”
Another neighbour, who had known the family for 15 years, said on Tuesday that on the day of the killing Johnson was let into his father’s home by a carer. The neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: “That day the carer let Michael in – or perhaps Lee said ‘let him in’ – and she left them together as she went to get shopping. That was why they were alone together. I don’t think Lee wanted to be alone with him. Perhaps it had to do with money – Michael had a strange way of looking at things.”
She said Johnson was devastated by the death of his “linchpin” mother, who “kept things on an even keel”. While he had coped with his father’s care initially, things went downhill after his marriage.
Nigel Lithman, QC, defending, told the Old Bailey several leading psychiatrists had examined Johnson, now in Chase Farm Hospital, in Enfield. Lifetime epileptic seizures and the side-effects of drugs to combat his convulsions had left him deeply disturbed, isolated and damaged.
One neighbour described Johnson and his father as vulnerable people let down by social services. She said Johnson had been visiting a Camden mental health unit.
“I believe there were people not doing their job. They let Lee Johnson and his son down,” she said.
“Why was I always worried something was going to happen and they weren’t? My daughter’s father went to visit Michael and came back saying ‘that isn’t a well man’ – why couldn’t they see that?”
She added: “Did they increase the drug dosage? Did they do something to trigger it? The man I knew would never have done that. He was proud of the way his father overcame his disability after his mother died. He revered him and respected him.
“I’ll never get my head around the fact that Michael went in there and killed his dad with no feeling. I’ll never believe he did it in his right mind.”
Mr Lithman said that heavy doses of Keppra, which was first prescribed in September 2004, had dangerous consequences for Johnson and his father. His epilepsy had always “blighted his life”, he added.
His fatal attack did not result from any financial motive, said Mr Lithman.
Speaking yesterday (Wednesday) from France, a friend, Dr Frances Jowell, described Professor Johnson’s death as “a sad loss”.
She added: “He was a very fine scholar and he made a huge contribution to the study of artist Delacroix. He was renowned internationally.
“He was charming, very helpful and he was always happy to advise.” |
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