The cheating partner of murdered businesswoman Sadie Hartley admitted that he was “weak and foolish” for having an affair with her killer – but claimed he was also a victim.
In an emotional interview, Ian Johnston denied being partly culpable for Hartley’s death, despite sleeping with Sarah Williams behind her back. He said he was now homeless after Hartley’s family made him remove all of his belongings from her home shortly after her “barbaric” and “savage” murder.
Johnston revealed that after her murder he discovered he was not in her will and had been shocked by his treatment. He repeatedly suggested he was also a victim of the planned assassination which occurred after he embarked on an explicit sexual relationship with travel agent Williams.
He told how he had been targeted by the murderer, as had Hartley, and had been flattered by the attention of a younger woman, but refused to admit any responsibility for the murder.
Asked directly if he had loved Hartley, Johnston replied that he did, adding it was a “cocoa and Kindles” relationship that “comes from being nearly 60”, but then went on to say that she had not provided for him in her will.
Johnston, 57, told how he had been pursued by Williams and described their relationship as “entertainment” and purely of a sexual nature. He claimed that he had repeatedly tried to end it with her but she was “persistent” and “persuasive”.
Johnston said he had not met Williams again after she wrote to Hartley to reveal the affair a year before she killed her. However, he continued to send his ex-mistress explicit messages in the days before the fatal stabbing and accepted he had been “foolish to send and respond to some texts”.
“There’s obvious responsibility, because in its simplest terms if I’d never met Sarah Williams she wouldn’t have been in this position where she would go ahead and murder Sadie,” he said. “I’ll never know what her motivation for that is. She’s decided to do that, it’s very much her responsibility.
“How I absolutely wish I’d never, ever met her,” added Johnston. “I didn’t for one minute feel, or have any inkling at all that any of this was being planned, and even if I had, I’ve been assured by the police there was nothing I could do to stop this.”
Johnston, whose mother died a month before Hartley’s murder, said: “I was vulnerable and I think she took advantage of that.”
Johnston denied he was a “villain” whose dishonest actions led to his partner’s death and also denied leading Williams on. “Oh, I should’ve had more sense. The remorse I feel, the abject horror of what’s happened and the consequences of me meeting her, I just will regret that forever.”
During the seven-week trial, explicit details of Johnston’s affair with the killer of his partner were laid bare. Only hours after Hartley’s murder he told her business partner, Julie Taylor, “I’m homeless now, you know.” He also asked whether Hartley had altered her will.
In awkward and emotionally charged exchanges with barristers at Preston crown court, it emerged that Johnston had continued having an intermittent sexual relationship with Williams, described as his “bit on the side”. On 4 January, 10 days before Hartley’s murder, 30 messages were exchanged between the pair.
Johnston met Williams – whom he described as respectable, young and engaging – at the Chill Factore indoor ski slope in Manchester in December 2012 and, under the guise of giving her ski lessons, they swapped numbers. The lessons never took place and the pair embarked on an affair instead. But by October 2014, Johnston told how he had tried to end the affair as Williams had become “delusional”.
Johnston said he had been “aghast” at Williams’s denials and arrogance in the witness box, considering the overwhelming evidence. “I’m absolutely and utterly appalled at her lack of emotion while she gave evidence in front of Sadie’s children, Harry and Charlotte, and brothers and family and my family and friends. That there was no remorse whatsoever, no attempt to defend her position.
“The day that that door shuts, she’s anonymous forever and the rest of us are just left wondering why the hell this had to happen.”
Johnston said that since the murder he had been shunned by Hartley’s family and that he had “lost everything”, with him being given a day to collect his belongings from her home.
“There’s been absolutely no contact with Sadie’s family from the minute they found out she was dead. OK, no contact. I found out I’m not in the will when the juror asked a question, was I in the will.”
Breaking down in tears, Johnston said: “I’ve lost everything. Can you imagine? This eight months has just been the most horrendous, you just get a kicking every day and I want the kicking to stop now and I know it won’t for a while.
“And if anybody wants to blame that on a few ridiculous, bloody texts then it’s just outrageous. There was nothing I could do to foresee or stop this. I wasn’t culpable in the death of Sadie.”
