Avril Johnson

Hello. Hi. I'm Rachel.

I'm Hannah. And this is the Sinister South Podcast. I podcast all about the nefarious ongoing surf of the river.

She bringing nefarious back. I'm bringing nefarious back. This will really affect the tour.

Yeah, suddenly we will have no tickets for our live shows. Do you not know what I mean? What? You're the second person that hasn't got that reference. So when Justin Timberlake was arrested for DUI, he said to the police officer arresting him didn't know who he was.

They didn't recognise him. He was much younger. And Justin Timberlake goes, this is going to really affect the tour.

And the police officer goes, what tour? And he goes, the world's tour. And then the police officer then works at like, finds out who he is. But so then anytime you make a Justin Timberlake reference, I will have to say, this is really going to affect the tour.

But you're the second person that hasn't got it. So I probably should stop making it. I mean, to be fair, I shan't.

I knew that he was struggling to sell tickets for his tour. I assumed that was really going to affect the tour. The world tour.

It's a bit like, what was it from targeting? I've never actually recovered from this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolute blinder of a sentence.

Oh God, what weird world the world was five years ago. That was when that came out. Yes, I know.

Pretty mad. Anyway. Just to give you insight into our brains today.

I think we're very delirious. We're both on the precipice of going from, I'm going to call it a holiday. I've got this a mini retirement.

It's two nights in Tring. But yeah, I've kind of got that. I finished work.

Well, I haven't still got work for you. But finished with my album. Where we're going to Tring, if the accountant is listening, is also work.

Well, that's what I said. I'm still working for you. It's true.

And I see this friendship as a job. As a job, yeah. You do have to put in the hours.

You do. It's hard graft. Yeah, I think the outcomes are not second.

The ROI is shit. No, it's lovely and I love you. And we're good friends.

But yeah, we've both got that pre-holiday excitement madness. We have, indeed, for the whole of today. As I said to you earlier, when you turned up, it's like, I'm on that thing where I know that I'm not going to be around for the rest of the week.

So today needed to be a day where I just got the fuck on. And instead, I did not. Just did not.

Absolutely not today. Yeah. Yeah.

I was going to talk about work then. That was going to be boring. So let's not do that.

How are you, my darling, apart from being slightly mad with excitement for trim? Very good, very good, very well. Good. I had a good, fun weekend.

I met up with some people that I used to work with a lifetime ago. Lovely. On Friday night.

And that was really good fun. One of them is just retired. So basically, all he does is swan around the Algarve at the moment.

Yeah, I know. And then one of them, I'm going to get the name of it. One of them, who's a good friend of mine, lovely person, but has lost his tiny mind because he's doing the, what's it called? The marathon de Sables.

Oh. So as he was explaining it, it's like, it's in the Sahara. Yeah.

And it's, I think six days and it's 40k, 40k, 40k, 80k, 20k, 20k. That's ridiculous. Each day.

That is absolutely ridiculous. And you have to carry everything with you and all of that. Who was this? Richard Whittington.

I should have a full name him. He won't care. There we go.

Yeah. Wow. So that is mad.

But it did make me laugh. I don't really want to give away his dress as well. I was really nearly about to tell you exactly where he lived.

Here's his format. Here's his postcode. His passport number.

I've got pictures of his bank account. No, I wish. No, he was obviously doing a lot of training and he was running the other day and he fell over and he said it was like such a playground fall over where he's like all scraped all his hands and his knees.

And he had a white running top on and he's rubbed his, like his hands were bleeding, but he's like only like a quarter of the way into his run or whatever. So he's like rubbed his hands on his top and he's running along and hasn't noticed because they, like the way it was set up was on a towpath, I believe, that there was a police cordon ran right into a crime scene covered in blood. It was very sad because it was a dead body, but it wasn't a murder.

So it was, he wasn't under suspicion, but he kind of ran into and there was just a load of police just turned and looked at him and he was like, I'm covered in blood. It is mine. He's like, look at my hands, look at my hands.

Oh bless him. That was very funny. Love it.

It was lovely to see that lot. Nice. And then Saturday, Richard and I potted about South East London.

Got a bit drunk. That's what you want to do. I love, I love one of those weekends where it is like, there's no fixed plans.

It's just a few drinks. There's no pressure. Just going to go and do, and they always turn out to be like the really nice nights where it's like, yeah, this has just been, this has been nice.

Good fun. Very good. How are you? I'm fine.

Do you want to tell the half is? So I got here this morning, been working here all day and then knew we were going to record. It's now evening time to others. I got a text from Richard.

Oh, what time are you going to be home tonight? Just about the time he finished his work. I said, I'm not bruv. I'm recording the pod.

Yeah, I'm busy, busy. He was like, oh, I was like, have you forgotten your keys? He was like, yeah. So I think we got called in for dinner or whatever.

So I had texts back straight away. So I text him back being like, Oh God, what are you going to do? Thinking he'll come here and pick up my keys or something like that. Or I'll try and like, could I drive there and back? And I've gone to Potter's Bar.

Well, it seems slightly excessive. If you've lost your key or you haven't got your keys with you that day, just go to Potter's Bar. It's the only option.

The only logical, strategical plan of action. No keys. I live in South London.

I'm going to go to Potter's Bar. No, Potter's Bar United. Who knows? Someone will be playing football in the Potter's Bar area.

And he'll have decided, I'll just go and watch a game of football then. I mean, good on him for just being like, it doesn't matter. I just enjoy the sport.

Oh, God's going to go and do that. It's not about the club. It's just, yeah, just fancy going and watching some football.

He has his loyalties before anybody that listens is like, Oh, just any old club is there. He has his loyalties, don't worry. But yeah, he's quite happy.

Any sport apart from really basketball. Fair. That's the only one that I've not been fully subjected to.

Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. I overheard an American man in a restaurant on Saturday by talking to some British women who had been like, so it was anniversary this weekend, married 11 years, Will and I decided to go out for dinner.

And we went to go and watch the Conjuring at the cinema. If anyone is planning to go and see it, don't, it's shit. Genuinely really angered me that there was nothing that was explained.

Like, I have so many questions. It would have been very easy to explain what the ghosts and gummies are. I'm literally the worst person for you to talk to, because it is like so far out of anything I would ever go to watch.

I know, I know. But it was just genuinely really irritating because it was just like, you have explained nothing. And this is supposedly the last film in the series.

And it tells me fuck all. But anyway, but you did buy a big cup. I bought a massive cup.

Yes. You're the only person I know that buys merch from things like that. To be fair, I only bought it because it looks like it's got blood dripping down it.

I wish you'd gone to Potter's bar. Look, all right. It doesn't matter how old I get.

The goth is in me and she won't leave. But no. Yeah, we went to the cinema up at Leicester Square, completely got ripped off for absolutely everything.

But we did that accidental, like not accidental drinking, but I drank more than I would normally have drunk on a night out. And I was feeling quite happy when we got to the cinema. And I did say to the lady, I was like, I want this, I want the cup, but don't want the Coca Cola in it, please.

And she was like, well, do you want anything in it? I was like, yes, two strawberry compliments, please. And give her credit, she did it nice. So yeah, so we had we had those.

But I was sat in the restaurant and it was really round. So they put this American bloke on with these random two women because he was just a solo diner at a large table. Yeah.

And they were talking about sport. And and I was trying very hard to listen to my husband's love for my life, rather than anybody else's conversation in the room. And but no, they were talking about it.

And this American bloke turned around and was like, oh, yeah, like, everyone's really into baseball, where I'm from. And like, we really like baseball, but you guys don't have baseball. And the other woman went, no, we don't have it here.

But like, it's like cricket, isn't it? And he was like, yeah, yeah, it's like cricket. It's kind of a mix of cricket and rounders. That was my thing.

I basically I had to stop myself from turning around and quite aggressively being like, it's nothing like cricket. It's definitely rounders. I don't know why there is some similarities to cricket.

Well, in the fact that there's a bat and a ball, correct? No, like, I don't know. Oh, don't ask me, because now I also go to cricket games now, don't I? And I'm trying to learn what this silly mid off is, which I still can't, I can't, I'm learning about run rate. And I'm, I can kind of read the scoreboard now.

Okay. Which is a vast improvement on the last times I've been to the overall. And I was just staring blankly at some men.

Lovely. Well done. Occasionally looking around and seeing other people shout out.

So yeah, that's what I thought too. That's what I thought. But there is, there is similarity.

Go to Podders Bar and talk to him about it. I don't know. I will, I will.

But yeah, no, so that was, that was my weekend. Was, yeah. Went to Soho, went to Chinatown, went to my private members club.

Because we haven't shown people that I'm a woman of the people in a while. So I just got to bring that back. Got a degree, got a plane, I got a private members club.

I do. I'm actually Bill South London, I'm from the ends. All right, love.

I do have very dulcet tones. I'll put on my, the voice I do when I need to speak to people at the members club. Go on then.

Oh dear, good day, we went there. Had a drink on the rooftop terrace and listened to a load of people on really shit motorbikes make a load of noise. Yeah, and then it was lovely.

And the kids were with my sister doing very wholesome things, making, I think they made ice cream sandwiches, cookies and shit like that. So yeah, they had fun. We had fun.

Awesome stuff. It was very nice. You know, yeah, I had a lovely weekend.

Very, very lovely, darling. It was nice. It was nice.

I'm excited for our week. Yeah, now we get to celebrate our anniversary. Of just being in each other's lives.

Well, I guess it probably would have been around this time because we would have started school. No, it's more into November, which was when you accepted my compliment. So that's what we go.

That's what we go by. Some people do it by the first time they had sex. Yeah, no, we do it by the first time I acknowledge your existence.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. And I think it may have been around February time if we go by when you told me on the bus that I was actually all right.

I think it's actually quite funny. Uh, no, I think you said I was actually all right. Yeah.

You told me you first told me I was funny. Oh, that was years later. On the DLR.

Yeah. When that was a joke about the finish. About finish.

Yeah. I've never had anything finished. Are you sure? She thinks she's so clever.

I was at the time. Oh, dear. Anyway, anyway, anyway, you've got a case.

Yeah, I have. Is it a good one? It is. It's really interesting.

Okay. It's, I mean, there's horror in it, obviously, because it's true crime. And I think I've pointed it out in the narrative as I'm writing as well.

There isn't a whole, there's lots of information about some parts and fuck all about others. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there are, and like I said, there's a couple of places I've put, this is an assumption and stuff.

So I would say that the victim narrative might not be as thorough as we would have liked. Fair. But to also match that there's not a lot about the perpetrators early life.

Right. Either. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's a very crime heavy. Yeah. Kind of judicarily heavy episode, but it's very interesting nonetheless.

I am excited. Right. I shall get myself ready.

So as always, the references being the show notes, there's a couple there which I'll, I mention later, but they're actually quite interesting to read. Okay. But I'll point them out when I come to them.

But just to say that if you're someone that usually likes to have a look at the references, they're actually some interesting ones this time. It's not just from rags. Yeah, it's not just from red tops.

I've actually got some good stuff in there this time. Okay, cool. London in the late 1990s was in a state of flux.

The capital was emerging from recession. The doctrines had been transformed and there was a sense of new possibility. But beneath it, whole boroughs were dealing with poverty, high unemployment, and rising violent crime.

Nowhere was this tension more visible than in South London. As is always the case. By day, Brixton, Tulsa Hill and Streatham bustled with markets, barbershops, and mini cabs.

By night, the airwaves filled with the crackle of pirate radio stations and the basements of community halls shook with sound systems. Reggae, dance hall, jungle, garage. This was the beating heart of black British music at the time.

Names like Saxon Sound and Cox Zone were known worldwide and second generation DJs were building reputations that carried far beyond London postcodes. And yet, this was also the moment when the press had begun talking in increasingly breathless terms about yardie gangs. Headlines warned of drug linked shootings, execution style killings, and a new kind of violence spilling out onto London streets.

The reality was more complex, but the panic was real and it hung in the air, especially in boroughs like Lambeth. On the surface, there was nothing extraordinary about the summer of 1998. Families spilled into Brockwell Park on long evenings and the estates walkways echoed with kids kicking footballs, neighbours gossiping and music seeping out of open windows.

Life in Lambeth wasn't easy, but it was ordinary in its own way. And yet, in the middle of all this orderiness, something was coming. A night of violence that would not only devastate one family, but also echo across London, becoming a touchstone in the city's struggle with gun crime.

Today, I'm talking about the case of Avril Johnson, a young woman whose life was cruelly cut short in a senseless act of extreme violence for absolutely no reason. So, who was Avril Johnson? There isn't a lot out there about her childhood or her upbringing. I come on to talk about her brother a bit later in this section, and if I were to make assumptions, as he was born in England, I think it is probably safe to assume that Avril was too.

To most people, she was simply Avril, a 30-year-old mum living in Cressingham Gardens, a state on the edge of Brockwell Park. Avril was a busy woman, raising her two daughters, who were seven and one, with her husband, Kirk. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything about Kirk, other than what happens to him later in the story.

Fine, okay. Neighbours described Avril as warm, grounded, and always with a ready laugh. Home life meant nappies, school runs, and the familiar routines of a young family.

I will put my teeth in soon, I promise. You're all good, mate. She wasn't wealthy, but she was building something, a household, a career, and a name for herself.

Because Avril also had another identity, one that gave her real joy and pride. On flyers, on sound system lineups, and in crowded clubs, Avril became Miss Eerie, or Irie. Irie.

Irie, I think it is, sorry. She'd been part of the South London reggae and dancehall scene since her teens, soaking up its energy and eventually finding her place behind the decks. Being a female DJ in that world wasn't easy.

The scene was dominated by men, but Avril carried herself with confidence. Those that heard her play remembered her selections as sharp, and her delivery as stylish. She wasn't trying to be a star, she just loved the music and loved being part of that world.

A music man in the family, Avril's brother was none other than Tipper Irie, one of the standout voices of UK dancehall. Tipper came up through Saxon Sound International, a Lewisham-based sound system that became a global force in the 1980s. Saxon pioneered the fast chat style, rapid fire, lyrical delivery over reggae rhythms, and produced names like Smiley Culture, Papa Levee, or Levi, I've heard both, and Tipper himself, who went on to become one of the first British MCs to break through internationally.

His 1986 single Hello Darling hit the UK Top 20, and he would later tour the world and collaborate with artists such as the Black Eyed Peas, so he wrote Hey Mama with Who I Am, and Long Beach Dub All Stars, and he even earned a Grammy nomination. Having a brother like Tipper meant music wasn't just something Avril loved, it was in her bloodline, and while Tipper was touring the world, Avril was holding her own closer to home. As Miss Irie, she was one of the few women stepping up to the decks in South London clubs, part of the same cultural current that put Saxon and Tipper on the map.

She didn't need to be famous, her presence on the scene mattered on its own terms. And balancing those two sides of life, motherhood and music, was Avril's reality. Friends later said she seemed happiest when she was either with her girls or when she was playing records.

She was building a future where both could co-exist, a secure family home, and a name in the scene. That combination made her murder not only brutal, but also bewildering. She wasn't part of the drug trade or street violence, she wasn't part of a gang or affiliated with any gangs, and the gang violence that had filled the headlines of the time.

She was just a mother and a DJ trying to make it all work. So our first side quest of the episode is a bit about Tulse Hill in 1998, because to understand the impact of what happens next, we need to pick to Lambeth in the late 90s. So like I said earlier, it was a borough of sharp contrasts on one side, vibrant markets and long-established communities of different races living together with relative pace.

On the other side was deep poverty, unemployment and some of the highest crime rates in London. Tulse Hill sat in the middle of it all, wedged between Brixton, Streatham and Norwood. It was close enough to carry the energy of Brixton's town centre, but was quieter and more residential.

The estate where Avril lived was built on the edge of Brockwell Park, and it was a low-rise housing rather than towers, and it was a community where the families knew one another. It wasn't always an easy place to live, so to speak, but it wasn't notorious either, and for many it was just simply home. But the wider picture across Lambeth was tense.

The mid to late 90s saw a rise in shootings linked to the cocaine trade, robberies and turf wars between rival groups. The press increasingly labelled these as yardie crimes, borrowing a Jamaican slang term for people from Kingston's government yards and flattening it into a catchall for violent drug-linked gangs. In reality, the situation was more complex, a mix of British-born and Jamaican migrants, some involved in organised crime, others caught up in the fear, and also then others just stereotyped along with it all, regardless.

For local people though, the language mattered less than the reality. There was a genuine sense of fear as stories spread of execution-style shootings, families caught in crossfires, unarmed robberies carried out with military precision. Community leaders were already raising concerns that ordinary families were being left exposed, that violence wasn't just staying in the drug trade, it was creeping into ordinary homes and ordinary lives.

By the end of the 90s, the Met was already under pressure to respond. Shootings linked to drug disputes were stacking up at communities with demanding action. Behind the scenes, plans were taking shape for a specialist unit that would later become Operation Trident.

And it was into this atmosphere that the attack on Avril Johnson took place. A mother killed in front of her children in her own home. For many Londoners, it was the moment the headlines stopped being abstract.

The violence wasn't somewhere else or someone else's problem, it was here, in the domestic spaces of South London, and it claimed the life of a woman who, again, wasn't part of anything. So it was late on a summer evening in 1998 when the Johnson household was shattered by violence. Avril was at home with her husband Kirk and their two young daughters.

The family's routine was unremarkable, they were winding down for the night in their flat. Without warning, three men forced their way inside. They weren't burglars in the ordinary sense.

They became armed, organised and intent on control. Avril and Kirk were quickly overpowered and bound with electrical flex. Their children were dragged away and hidden under a mattress.

Later in court, the prosecution described the chilling detail of two little girls pressed into silence between the weight of a mattress and the bed. And they were how old, seven and one? Seven and one. Fuck.

The intruders demanded money and jewellery. This was no, like, random break-in, so to speak. It was a targeted robbery and it was carried out with precision and with menace.

Kirk was stabbed in the neck during the struggle, trying to defend his family. And then in front of everyone, Avril was shot in the head at close range. She was executed.

Oh my god. A second shot was fired and it's believed that was meant for Kirk, but it missed. Kirk dropped to the floor in a moment of just incredible quick thinking and feigned death, knowing that his only chance of survival was if they thought he was already dead.

The entire ordeal lasted only minutes. By the time the attackers fled, Avril lay dying. Kirk was bleeding incredibly heavily but was alive and two children had witnessed fragments of the attack from beneath a mattress in their own home.

Oh, how do you ever feel safe again? The gunman had left. The flat fell silent. Kirk, with a really deep stab wound to his neck, somehow summoned the strength to move.

He checked on Avril, who was obviously gravely injured, and then turned to his daughters. He lifted the mattress and pulled them out. It's hard to imagine the terror of that moment.

A father heavily injured and desperate, two children completely in shock and Avril barely clinging to life. Kirk managed to stagger out of the flat and raise the alarm. Neighbours later recalled the chaos as emergency services were called and arrived.

The police and paramedics arrived pretty quickly and immediately began to try and save Avril's life. But the injuries she had sustained were absolutely catastrophic. She was taken to hospital where doctors could do nothing more.

Avril Johnson was pronounced dead shortly after she arrived at hospital. For Kirk, survival had come down to instinct, to laying still when the gun was turned on him. For his daughters, survival meant silence.

The human cost of that night was immediate and irreversible. Two young girls left without a mother, a husband left widowed and wounded, and a community forced to face the reality that violence of this scale could reach into the most ordinary of homes. Police treated the case with urgency.

From the outset, it was clear that this wasn't a domestic dispute or even a burglary gone wrong. It had all the hallmarks of a targeted professional attack, the way the family had been tired, the precision with which Avril was shot, and the search for the jewellery. These were all red flags.

Detectives were certain they were dealing with organised criminals, not chance intruders. And within days, their suspicions deepened. When another London mother, Michelle Carby, was found tied and shot in eerily similar circumstances, officers began to connect the dots.

What had happened in Tolls Hill was not an isolated crime. It was part of something much bigger, something that would soon be revealed as a violent spree across the city. The same methods, the same brutality, were appearing elsewhere in London, and the picture that emerged was of a small group of men moving across the city, leaving death and fear in their wake.

Fucking hell. The first case to be linked came just four days after Avril's murder and the attempted murder of Kirk. On the 30th of June in Stratford, East London, police were called to the home of Michelle Carby.

Michelle was 35 and a mother of three. She had been bound in her living room and shot twice in the head. Her children were upstairs while the attack took place.

I couldn't find the exact timing of it all, but I think the kids were in bed. Because the next thing that's really reported on is that it was her eldest, who's just 13, who came down the next morning and discovered her body. Michelle wasn't part of organised crime either.

She was just a mother raising her children, living in Stratford at a time when East London was also seeing rising violence. And her death sent shock waves through her community. And unfortunately, that is all I could find out about her.

Oh my God. The similarities to Toss Hill were chilling. The forced entry, it was really obvious that valuables had been taken.

The victims were tied with the same kind of electrical flex. It was a close range killing that looked more like an execution than anything else. Local papers like the News Shopper began reporting on the cases together, warning that police believed the same gang was responsible and that they would kill again.

For communities in Lambeth and beyond, the message was stark. This violence wasn't confined to gangland disputes. It was entering people's homes.

And just a few weeks later, the violence reached North West London. In July of 1998, Patrick Ferguson, 35, was shot in the face as he answered the front door of his girlfriend's flat in Kingsbury. He died instantly.

Again, it was an execution style. And again, it was linked to the same group. There were other crimes as well.

In Clapham, a couple were tied up during a break in, the woman was raped, and a fence the same perpetrators would later be convicted of. Again, the pattern was there, the binding, the robbery, and the ruthless disregard for human dignity. By now, detectives were certain that they were dealing with a crime.

Some ended in theft, others in murder. And when the evidence was finally pieced together, two names emerged as central. Tyrone Hart and Kurt Roberts.

For the public, the killings of Avril Johnson, Michelle Carvey, and Patrick Ferguson landed like a series of sharks. These weren't disputes spilling out of nightclubs or back alley shootouts. They were invasions of family homes, mothers and fathers executed while children looked on or slept upstairs.

For the police, it was confirmation that London was facing something more organized, more ruthless, and more frightening than they had previously admitted. The police response did move quickly from horror to analysis. By the time Patrick had been murdered in Kingsbury, detectives knew the killings were connected, but they needed proof.

That proof came from ballistics. At each crime scene, spent cartridges were recovered. When the rounds were test fired in the lab, the results were unequivocal.

The same weapon had been used in all three murders. It was a Tokarev 9mm pistol, a gun that had obviously once been legally deactivated, but crudely rebarrelled for use. Linking shootings through microscopic tool marks on the cartridges wasn't glamorous detective work, but it was definitive.

One gun, three killings. Which is what... Yeah. What happens next, well, in a bit, is baffling.

Okay, okay. Just remember that. I'll remember it, yeah.

Then there were the phones. In both Tulsa Hill and Stratford, the attackers had taken mobile handsets along with jewelry. Not long after, those phones lit up again, making calls to Jamaica.

For investigators, that was a gift. They could trace the calls, track the usage and start building a picture of who had the phones in their possession. In the late 90s, this was still relatively new investigative ground, but it proved decisive.

And surveillance filled in the rest. As names began to surface, plainclothes teams followed suspects across London and beyond. The net tightened, and on the 5th of August, 1998, detectives swooped in Birmingham and arrested her own heart, who was just 28 at the time.

Shortly after, somewhere in South London, they picked up Kurt Roberts, who was just 19. Fucking hell. Both were Jamaican nationals who had entered Britain earlier in 1998 on false documents and under false pretenses.

Right. So yeah, fake names, fake passports, and like, oh, we're here to see that I don't think they aren't actually existed, but that she might have done, but they can find out. It was all very convoluted.

Yeah, fine. What became clear was that Hart and Roberts weren't operating in isolation. They were part of a wider gang.

The police worked out there were nine men in total, who mixed and matched roles across a string of robberies and attacks. So some tied up victims, others held the gun, others drove, and then that might be at one, and then they'd swap around at the next one, and then swap again for the next one. So they all kind of, evenly distributed the roles amongst themselves.

The whole group, spoiler alert, was eventually bought before the court. Hart and Roberts carried the most serious charges, but others were also convicted and jailed for their part in the spree, and one was deported. Together, they represented exactly what community leaders had been warning about, a mobile, ruthless crew capable of moving across boroughs and leaving devastation in their wake.

By the time Hart and Roberts were charged with murders, the Met believed they had dismantled the core of an execution squad that had left three people dead, a woman raped, and families across the capital terrified. At the end of 1999, the case of Avril Johnson and the wider spree of violence reached the Old Bailey. Tyrone and Kurt faced some of the most serious charges a court can hear.

The prosecution laid out the pattern of attacks across London that summer. The evidence was damning. The ballistic experts called to iterate to the jury the gun evidence.

The court heard how jewellery that had been taken from Avril's home was later recovered and further tied Tyrone Hart to the crime, and of course then the mobile phone evidence, which was crucial. So all the evidence linked the defendants to the offenses. But the prosecution's case didn't rely solely on forensics.

There was also an eyewitness testimony. At trial, jurors heard how a witness had picked both Hart and Roberts out of a police lineup. So it wasn't just science pointing to them or phone records, it was human recognition too.

Here's a note for the Trevor's. This case has some really frustrating gaps in it. So there are elements I found such as there being a police lineup and an eyewitness, but I couldn't find anything anywhere about which crime the witnesses had seen, or whether the witness was a victim of either a robbery or was it the victim of the rape.

Right, okay. Like I wanted to include that there was a lineup and there was an eyewitness apparently, but I don't know any more. Yeah, yeah, okay.

So the jury at the Old Bailey ended up hearing weeks of evidence and when it came to deliberations, it was not straightforward. They spent several days considering the charges and on some counts, they could just not reach an agreement. On the murder of Michelle Carby, the jury was split.

The prosecution argued the similarities were overwhelming, but the jury couldn't reach the majority required. On that charge, both Hart and Roberts walked free. It was a painful result for Michelle's family who had to watch as the defendants were cleared of her killing despite the eerie parallels to Avril's case and seemingly mountains of evidence.

On the other charges, however, the jury was unanimous. Both men were found guilty of murdering Avril Johnson and the attempted murder of her husband. Hart was also convicted of the murder of Patrick Ferguson and Roberts was convicted of the rape and clapham, as well as further robberies.

When sentencing came, the court was hushed. Judge Neil Dennison made it clear that the gravity of these crimes went beyond the individual victims, though he named them and acknowledged the devastation caused. He told the two men, quote, you behaved like an execution squad.

You carried out acts that were an affront to civilized society. Hart was sentenced to life imprisonment with no prospect of release for decades. Roberts, who was just 19 at the time of the crimes, was sentenced to be detained for life in youth custody, plus then an additional 10 years for the clapham rape.

Right, OK. Around them, the rest of the gang also faced justice. Like I said, in total, eight men were jailed for their roles in the robberies and the attacks and the murders, and a ninth was deported back to Jamaica.

Not all were convicted of murder, but the court heard how they rotated the roles and together they formed the crew that had spread terror across London. The trial ended with a measure of justice, but also with lingering unease. Families were left grieving, communities still lived under the shadow of the headlines, and even from the dock, the convicted men refused to accept their guilt.

Side quest. OK, OK. Ivan Hart and his many statements.

OK. Now, I'm just I'm just going to read what I've got, but this is what I meant about the reference, one of the references in the show notes. There's two links to these statements that he makes, and it is basically a blow by blow of what he's accused of in his own words.

And it's interesting to read. I don't know. Like for all I know, maybe he is completely innocent.

I don't know. I'm not going to say no, because he was convicted. Yeah.

And I think like looking at the phone records and the evidence was pretty decisive. Yeah, they had reason to say that it was him. Yeah.

But yeah, anyhow, years after his conviction, Hart continued to protest his innocence. In 2011, more than a decade after the trial, he issued a statement through Miscarriages of Justice UK, M O J U K dot com dot credit, something like that. In it, he described himself as a convicted scapegoat and claimed that he had been wrongly targeted because of who he was and where he came from.

Hart set out a version of events in which the evidence against him was either manipulated or misunderstood. He argued that the prosecution had leaned too heavily on the yardy panic of the late 90s and that once labeled he had little chance of a fair hearing. In the statement, Hirone states, quote, I was arrested in August 1998 and accused of the most serious crimes, murder, attempted murder and robbery.

From that moment, I was treated not as a suspect, but as a guilty man. The press called me a yardy before I even stepped foot in a courtroom. He pointed to the police identification lineups.

Hence why I wanted to mention them earlier, claiming that they were unreliable and questioned the use of forensic evidence suggesting the chain of custody was flawed. In his words, the evidence was never beyond doubt. The gun they relied on, the phones they said were in my possession.

These things were not proved the way the jury was led to believe. I am serving a life sentence for crimes I did not commit. Hart insisted that the case against him had been shaped by fear and prejudice rather than facts.

One detail he highlighted was the role of informants. Among the men initially charged in connection with the spree was Paul Barrett. Barrett, a Jamaican born man who admitted in open court that he had worked as a registered police informant.

Paul was acquitted of murder and later freed despite the court hearing that he had confessed to killing a man in Jamaica years earlier. Hart and his supporters, this was proof of a double standard that the system would cut loose an admitted killer because he was useful to them while securing convictions against others labelled as execution squad members. This feeds directly into the backdrop of that time.

So another side quest for us all, Operation Trident. So the late 90s were the crucible for Operation Trident, which was the Met's specialist unit on gun crime in black communities at the time. So it was launched in 2000, partly in response to community outcry after the murders like Avril's.

Trident was designed to tackle gun crime in London's communities, particularly shootings linked to Jamaican networks. At the time, the police spoke openly about the rise of yardie gangs and used it as shorthand for Jamaican organised crime. The label was crude, but it drove the policy.

On paper, Trident was built to reassure. Its remit was targeted, shootings, gun murders and organised gangs. The Met promised a unit with better cultural knowledge, closer ties to community leaders and a focus on saving lives.

In its early years, Trident made significant arrests and was credited with bringing down some of the most notorious gun networks in London. But from the very start, there was unease. Trident relied heavily on informants, men embedded in the same criminal worlds they were supposed to help dismantle.

That reliance raised questions of mistrust and justice, especially when figures like Paul were acquitted of murder whilst others received life sentences. To many, it looked like the police were cutting deals with killers while branding whole communities as suspects. The focus on yardies also fell into wider stereotypes.

So families who wanted protection from gun violence often found themselves completely over-policed, stopped and searched and treated as though they were part of the problem. What was meant to be a solution seemed to just deepen mistrust on all sides. So over time, Trident did... Trident did... Easy for you to say.

Over time, Trident evolved. Its remit expanded beyond Jamaican gangs to include all gang-related shootings and later knife crime. And it did deliver results.

Gun crime convictions rose, high profile murders were solved. But it also left behind scars. For some Londoners, Trident was proof the police could finally take violence seriously.

For others, it was another arm of surveillance and control, a reminder that safety and suspicion often came hand in hand. So going back to that statement from Hart. To supporters who published and publicised his statement, Hart represented an example of a man swept up in the wave of yardie prosecutions at the turn of the millennium.

For the families of Admiral Johnson and Patrick Ferguson, however, the verdicts remained clear. The jury had heard the case, weighed the evidence, and found Hart guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Whether or not his claims had merit, Hart's statement underlines how these cases lived on long after the courtroom closed.

Convicted men writing from prison, campaign groups taking up their causes, and debates about whether the atmosphere of the time, the media panic and political pressure tilted the scales of justice. It didn't change the sentences, but it does keep questions alive. For Avril's family, the aftermath was immediate and unbearable.

Kirk survived, but carried the trauma of that night for the rest of his life. The stab wound to his neck and the memory of lying still to try and save himself and the knowledge that his daughters were right there. And then also just to live in the knowledge that his daughters were left to grow up without their mother.

Michelle Carby's three children lost their mum too. Her eldest forced into the unimaginable position of discovering her body. And Patrick Ferguson had children that were left fatherless.

These were not just headlines, they were ruptured families, each carrying private grief long after the trials were over. As for memory, Avril's life was often mentioned in coverage through her brother. While Tipper continued to tour the world, his sister's death was a reminder of the cost carried at home.

Avril wasn't remembered with statues or public plaques, but her story, a mother, a DJ killed in front of her children, remained one of the cases that shaped both policing and perception of crime in London at the turn of the millennium. And even decades later, the case retains its resonance. Not only because the brutality of the crimes, but because it sits at the crossroads of several themes.

The human toll of organised violence, the birth of Trident, the controversies around informants, and the way fear of others is exploited. For the Johnson family and the other families torn apart in that summer of 1998, the legacy was deeply personal. For London, it became part of the wider story of how the city confronted gun crime with all the contradictions, mistrust and unanswered questions that came with it.

And I was split because I initially was going to do it for Patreon because I was like, it's not long enough. But I think there's just enough. Not that it makes it sound like the Patreon cases aren't interesting.

No, but I know what you mean. I'm very good at selling. There's enough meat on those bones to make an episode for the main show.

Yeah, 100%. And I just find it really interesting, the kind of very quick to blame. It's a double-edged sword, as I was trying to articulate, because on one hand, there was a lot of Jamaican organised crime that had come over into London that was running the cocaine trade that was causing devastation.

But the other flip of that is there was also this complete, it's Jamaicans and that's it. It's yardies. That's it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was almost like there's... That otherness of anyone that... They've made an assumption based on, like fairly or unfairly, they've made an assumption based on other activities that were going on, and then that's kind of where the blinkers have come out. That's it.

Obviously this. What I find really interesting about these sorts of cases is, one, the... I always find gun crime cases in the UK, really. I always assume that they're really uncommon, and they're really rare.

But it was quite interesting hearing quite recently that actually gun crime in the capital is on the increase. I think it's just, I've always associated gun violence with the States. And I think we've shared that so many times.

No, guns happen in America. They don't happen here. Exactly.

Knife crime is very much a London crime. And that is true, because that's why I tried and had to pivot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it is like the concept of someone coming into your house and shooting you is horrific. But also, how was she targeted? Is there anything that kind of... Not really. From what... Signposts it.

I think when the reporting around this says the word targeted, I think it means semi affluent. Right, okay. That house probably has some jewelry in it, or some money in it, or a mobile phone.

It's not, oh, these are rich people. It's, these are people that have got just enough that we can take to get what we want. There'll be stuff in there, but there won't be all the security.

Yeah, or like, we're not going to walk away with millions in diamonds and gold, but we are going to walk away with enough. Yeah, to get us... So it's kind of that targeting almost, wouldn't quite say middle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like that upper working class kind of... Yeah, fine. Level, and some of the more, call it what it is, some of the more racist reporting was very much like they didn't necessarily think that the police would give a shit. Right.

Because they were black too. Yeah, fine, okay. Kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's black on black violence. Like, yeah.

So it's a bit of a targeting in that way as well. But again, some of this is my assumption from reading stuff about them. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think it is always really difficult, especially when it's... Like, the reporting just isn't there to give you the detail. And potentially it is another interesting example of like, why isn't there all that detail there? Would we have known much more about Avril had she been white? Had she come from a more affluent part of London, would we have known more about her life? Do you think that the fact that she was Tippa Irie's sister came into it at all? Do you think it was kind of like, it was a targeted attack in the same way you were saying rather than they weren't going after Avril. It was just... Oh no, I don't think they went after her.

I didn't find anything that said they went after her because of who her brother was. Right, fine. I think it just so happened that she had her brother that was famous.

Right. I think it is my assumption that there is only so much more out there about Avril because she's got a famous brother than there is about Michelle. Yeah, fine.

I also couldn't find how the jury came to the decision not to convict them of Michelle's murder when everything I read pointed to it being the same gun. Yeah. Yeah, it's mad, isn't it? It's really interesting.

Right. The same M.O. Right, yeah. I don't know.

It's interesting. And also just to think about the fact that... I was sorry. I also couldn't find anything that said whether Michelle's case is a cold case now.

And like, because then I was kind of trying to find why don't they retest the bullets or now that forensics has come so much further. Is there no other evidence to retest or anything like that? Surely in 2025 we've got better. Yeah, you would think that we could actually definitively say who killed this woman.

Yeah, but it's just... While her three children were upstairs. God, I'm finding her just... Also the Patrick one, he literally just opened the front door and they shot him in the face. He was at his girlfriend's house, like his girlfriend's flat, just opened the door and shot him in the face.

Oh, it's horrific. Yeah, and it's also interesting this whole idea of... I don't know why I never thought of... I obviously know the term yardie, and it never crossed my mind that there would be Jamaican gangs. It's just like, in a weird way of a sort of... You think the Mafia, that's an Italian organized crime, and then you've got the Irish organized crime, and then you've got... I just know why my brain had never gone, Jamaican organized crime, that's the thing.

I just didn't think of it. And I didn't think that... You don't necessarily assume that people who... Look, 99.9% of people who come to this country are not coming to this country to commit crime, right? But it baffles me how they end up here together. So it's like, it's as if... I know that that sounds like stupid, but it is just a bit like, how do these people find each other? How do you suddenly decide, right, well, we're going to organize an execution squad to go around London and shoot people and take jewellery? It came over as a gang.

Do you think? Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know why they came over on false paperwork. Yeah, true, true, true, true, true, true.

Yeah, okay, fine, fair enough. I take it back. I think it just... I don't know what you're trying to say, but it just feels a little bit too much like an organized school trip, if they all come together.

Just feels very much like... Edge count. Yeah, exactly. Have we got all of the yardies? But no, it's just... I think it's just before we say it too much, because I was trying to put big air quotes around it with my voice, because I couldn't really find any think pieces or anything on whether the term yardie is racist or not.

So I don't think it is. No. But I'm not sure.

Would... Is it something... It's quite a pejorative word, isn't it? So it is stereotypical. It was used in a way that was pejorative. But I don't know if it's... We are calling them that, because that is what they were known as at the time.

I suppose it's a bit like... Well, that's the way I used it. Like, is the word... Because it's literally in the trident stuff. Like, it was... Yeah, exactly.

It's there. I suppose it's a bit like... You don't say... Like, to use the word gypsy is not pejorative, because that is what they are. That's what gypsies are.

That is a word that is used. But if you use it and say in a negative... Then it becomes pejorative. I suppose that's where it's... I just thought before we... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Before you go and say it a thousand times. I'm gonna just say it constantly. I don't... I'm not sure.

Yeah, no, no, no. That's fair. But like, I think it's just such a... This is the stuff that's in movies.

This is thrillers. And, you know, this is, you know, how blooming Liam Neeson in Taken starts. Do you know what I mean? It's very dramatic.

It's very... The fact that they're in this fucking awful stuff happens to this poor family or families. It's over so quickly. And then it's just like right onto the next one.

It feels like my naive little brain doesn't want to believe that there are people who can just go about like this same gang could just do it multiple times over and over and over again and get away with it for as long as... To be able to do it multiple times. Well, I think once you get to a level where you can commit that kind of crime, I suppose there has to be a desensitization to it. You know, muggers don't mug once, do they? No, but I feel like it's almost... With mugging, with robbery, with... I mean, obviously all of these crimes are violent in one way or another.

Like somebody, you know, burglary in whatever... Whether you're in the house or not in the house, or whether you're attacked or you're left sleeping and it's done while you're asleep. Like all of that is violent in its own way. But there's almost like theft and larceny and all of that stuff, you can kind of go, okay, well, they're stealing things or they're taking things from other people in order to then... It's almost like there's a reason behind it because you'll take that, you'll sell it on, you'll get money to do whatever it is that you might want to do.

The concept of going in and robbing someone and then killing them. Robbery's gone wrong. It did feel senseless.

I don't know why she had to be shot. I don't know why any of them had to be shot. Why? What was it that meant that, you know... Wear a balacava, tie them up.

Like you would have got the same... Exactly. Especially because they left the spent cartridges... They've left the spent cartridges. At the crime scenes.

They've left the children. They've hidden the children away. Like I understand that they were trapped under the mattress.

But I suppose, I mean, more like evidentially, you've left the spent cartridges there. So you're not forensically going around trying to erase... But would there have been a link to you about that? I think so. Well, I mean, wouldn't you just tidy up half of yourself? I mean, they're men.

Skate potter's bar. Skate potter's bar. But no, like, I mean, they might have been like... If they were professional killers, if they really were a professional execution squad, then I would assume that yes, probably they would have tidied up after themselves.

If it is just a crime of opportunity and someone's just decided, fuck it, we're going to shoot them. I don't know that necessarily, you know, your rational brain is firing on all cylinders, whether you would consider to go back and get it. Or maybe you just are so arrogant that you don't assume that's going to tie back to you in any way, shape or form.

So you don't need to get it. I mean, I also couldn't find out, like, whether the plan was to go on this big spree and then go back to Jamaica. Maybe leave the country before you get caught kind of thing, whether that was the plan.

Did you know how long they'd been in the UK? It was months. Oh, OK. So I think they'd come earlier that year is what I could find.

OK, OK. Yeah, it's interesting. There's a lot of question marks over a lot of the... Yeah, just the why.

And it almost feels like if you were going to... I get, like, with Michelle, if her children were asleep upstairs and had no kind of interaction with them, and they kind of knew where they were going or they looked for the stuff that they needed and then they got out, like, the reason why the kids were left alone is potentially that they never actually came into contact with them. But then in Avril and Kirk's situation, like, yeah, put them under the mattress so that the kids can't move. A mattress is very heavy for children of that age.

But it's almost like if it was a case of just, like, we want to get rid of you because we don't want you to be able to identify us or anything like that. Wouldn't get as dark as it is. But that's why it doesn't feel like that, does it? It just feels like an execution.

It just feels like senseless violence. Well, we can shoot you, so we will. Yeah.

Oh, God. Well, on that very cheery, lovely night. Thank you again.

It was really interesting. I hope that everyone can forgive me for a slightly shorter case. I think I can.

I've just done Rigby, guys. Come on. I mean, you're fine, mate.

You're fine. No, it was genuinely really interesting. So thank you.

I knew nothing about that case at all. But I must admit, when you said Miss Ari, I was like, oh, I know the name of her brother. Hey, Mama is actually a very good song.

It's a very good song. It is indeed. Cool.

So I suppose that just leaves us with all the nice bits, really. So, Trevors, we have a website that you can go and visit that will give you all of the insight into the cases that we've done. www.sinistersouthpod.co.uk And she did it in one.

Well done. So, yeah, you can go there, have a look at all of the back catalogue. You can access the recordings there, should you so wish.

And you can also have a sneak peek at some of the cases that might be coming up. Don't quote us as to when they're actually going to be there in what order, because that changes on the weekly. I like to just surprise Rachel.

You do, you do. Well, I put this all on the website. I'm like, I'm not going to write any of that.

All of those, all of those. No, get in the bin. But yeah, you can go and have a look and see what other cases we've got coming up.

If you've got any requests for South London cases that you would like us to cover, please do leave us a little message on there. We do get them sent directly to us. If you'd also like to just come along and have a chat with us, you can do so on Instagram or TikTok, which is Sinister South Pod on both of those platforms.

Or you can also send us a lovely email, Sinister South Podcast at gmail.com and they will go directly to Hannah. Who will definitely read them? No, I am. She will.

She'll also send me a message going, is this, this is a scam, correct? Yes. Yes, Hannah, it is. I don't know.

What if it was not? And then, oh, why is all of the podcasts digital footprint been deleted? Well, that's, I mean, as I ignored an email. It's a fair ask. It's a fair ask.

And then we also have the Patreon, which is Sinister South Podcast, I think. And there's the Facebook group, which, oh, yeah, old fat thumbs over here joined. Oh, did you? Yeah, I was like, damn it.

I wasn't meant to do that. But if you want to go to have a chat with Hannah, you can actually go and talk to her in real life over on Facebook as well. That's very, very hot.

But that is called Trevor's Unite and it's run by the lovely, not so lovely, though. And then we have, yeah, the Patreon. So if you fancy going along and seeing what all that is about, we are getting to grips with Patreon.

I'm going to try and do a bit of actual chat on it, which would be nice. It's just text chat. It's all fine.

So if anyone wants to come and say not another video that you're going to exclude me from. Not another video. No, no.

Also another video that I'm going to exclude you from and then also suggest I'm going to do every week and then completely forget because life gets in the way. But yeah, so go over there and we do for £5 and up patrons. You can get access to a mini episode each month, which are some of the cases that we've really wanted to cover on the main feed, but that just unfortunately don't have enough information.

So we do them over there. Slightly shorter episodes for you to fill the gap between. £10 and up, there will be a second offering.

There is, there is. We're going to go slightly different. We're going to go a little bit more into the psychology of stuff, we think.

We think. We keep saying that we think we know what we've got to do. And then we go and try and do it and you're like, Oh no, that didn't work.

No, it's very. I mean, if anyone's got any other suggestions, what would you like to see us do? What is it? What would you like to hear if you are a £10 and up patron? What would you like the additional episode to be? And we may just bend to your whim. Who who knows? We shall see.

And I've been threatening to do this blooming pin poll on Instagram. So I might try and get that done. It will.

Yeah, by this week's one, when this one goes out, it will be done. I can say it will be done. Yeah, OK, fine.

So yeah, you can go and vote on again. If you are a £5 and up patron, you get a detective. No, it's a Trevor's neighborhood watch pin and you can vote on the design that you want on that.

There you go. There we go. Cool.

So I suppose that's it then. Really? Thank you so much for listening, Trevor's. It's been awesome as per usual.

Thanks, guys. Thank you for the case hand and we shall see you. Thank you for the music.

Oh, there we go. So chat to you. All right.

I'm going to the spa. Yeah, me too. See you later.

I'm going to love you. Goodbye.