The ex-girlfriend of the 'Babes in the Wood' killer has been jailed for telling “wicked lies” at his murder trial.
Russell Bishop was put on trial for the murders of schoolgirls Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows in 1987 but was acquitted after Jennifer Johnson lied about key evidence - a blue sweatshirt found near the scene.
Today, the 55 year-old refused to appear in the same courtroom where she committed perjury more than three decades ago.
In her absence, the judge sentenced her to six years in jail.
The original not guilty verdicts had devastating consequences, when three years later Bishop kidnapped and sexually assaulted another young girl, leaving her for dead.
It took more than 30 years and a change in the law, fought for by the girls’ families, before Bishop was convicted for the murder of the two girls at a retrial in 2018.
Nine-year-olds Karen and Nicola were found sexually assaulted and strangled in a woodland den in Brighton in October 1986.
Johnson, who told her trial she “had no choice” but to lie, was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice on Monday (May 17) by majority verdicts.
Judge Mr Justice Sir Peter Fraser called Johnson an “accomplished liar” and said her crimes “strike at the heart of the administration of justice”.
He added: “The effect of your dishonesty endured for over three decades.
“Your refusal to attend today is an example of your refusal to accept what you have done.”
He recognised that she had suffered mental health issues but he did not accept she was in a “controlling and coercive relationship” with Bishop before her offences.
The judge said he hoped this was the “last chapter” in the “prolonged tragedy” that began with the deaths of Karen and Nicola.
Karen’s mother Michelle Hadaway told Lewes Crown Court that Johnson’s lies in 1987 left her “completely numb to the core”.
“The pain I have had to endure over the loss of my beautiful daughter Karen over the last 30 years has been unbearable.
“There has never been a moment when that sense of injustice has ever left and I fought with everything I possibly could.”
Defence barrister Chris Henley QC said Johnson was a “vulnerable young mother” in 1987 living a socially isolated life in a relationship with a “violent, abusive and coercive man”.
Mr Henley also criticised the idea that the 1987 trial resulted in not guilty verdicts directly because of evidence she gave about the blue Pinto sweatshirt.
Johnson had initially told police the now-infamous garment belonged to Bishop, but when it came to the trial she told jurors that it did not.
“Of course the evidence in relation to the top was material but it should not for one moment be considered decisive to the outcome of the trial," Mr Henley said.
“It is wrong and it isn’t fair to hold Jennifer Johnson responsible for that.
“It was her compelling and corroborated evidence about the top that in the end resulted in Russell Bishop’s conviction all those years later.
“The law required her to be stronger but in our submission a merciful and humane analysis of what happened will understand the reality of her position.”
Speaking outside court after the sentencing, Michelle Hadaway said: “Do you ever get over losing two little children who 35 years ago you last saw playing outside your house?”
Holding a picture of her daughter Karen, she continued: “Heartbreaking. Never get over it. Just got to learn to live with it, the same as what we’ve always done, haven’t we?
“I just wonder in the whole of the 35 years, has she ever gone up to the Bear Road cemetery and put any flowers down on them two children’s graves?
“Has she ever inside her heart ever felt any sympathy or anything at all for what we’ve gone through?”
