Without missing a beat: Justice for Scott, at last

The arrest of Scott Johnson’s alleged killer after more than 30 years was, for his brother Steve, a ‘remarkable’ moment.

NSW Police search an area on North Head near Manly after a man was arrested over the 1988 murder of Scott Johnson. Picture: Toby Zerna

The arrest of Scott Johnson’s alleged killer after more than 30 years was, for his brother Steve, a “remarkable” moment and the fulfilment of a personal commitment from NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller.

Two and a half years ago, the NSW state coroner at the time, Michael Barnes, had delivered inquest findings that turned official thinking about the case on its head. Scott Johnson’s naked body was found at the bottom of a 60m cliff at North Head, Manly, in Sydney, on December 10, 1988. His death had been written off previously as a suicide, but to Barnes it was a clear case of a gay hate killing. Those findings confirmed the long-held suspicions of Johnson’s family, who have been tireless in their search for the truth.

Afterwards, Fuller went to Steve Johnson and pledged to do everything in his power to solve the case. “True to his word here we are,” Steve Johnson said on Tuesday.

For Fuller, making the phone call to Steve Johnson in the morning to advise him of the arrest was a “career highlight”. His officers had reached back in time to pursue justice and make amends for wrongs of the past, when attitudes to gay hate crimes in the police force and wider community were very different. The alleged perpetrator was living a very different life too. Now 49, he was in his late teens at the time of the alleged murder.

In a video message, Steve Johnson said his brother had come to symbolise not just one death but many others in the 1980s and 90s “in a world full of anti-gay prejudice and hatred”. He thanked investigators, led by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Yeomans, who “worked his heart out” for two years. “Somehow with his small team during this pandemic crisis (he) managed to build this case and apprehend the alleged killer. It’s remarkable,’’ Steve Johnson said. Fuller, NSW police and Yeomans were “speaking to the gay community to say that times have changed”.

The arrest is also testament to the single-minded perseverance of a family and to the ability of coronial inquests to add new perspective.The former coroner, Barnes, cast a fresh set of eyes on the death of Scott Johnson, a 27-year-old US mathematician.

There were two previous inquests. The first, just months after the discovery of Johnson’s body, lasted a single day and ended with a finding of suicide. Many years later, in 2005, a separate coronial inquest found the deaths of three other men killed in cliff falls in the Bondi area in the 80s were linked to youths systemically assaulting gay men.

Scott Johnson, left, with brother Steve Johnson in 1982.

Johnson’s family used those findings to petition for his case to be reopened, and a fresh inquest in 2012 delivered an open finding, recommending the NSW police unsolved homicide team reinvestigate. Barnes’s inquest — the third into the case — wrapped up in 2017 and assessed the fresh evidence that had been gathered, with his findings spelling out the background to investigations.

At the first inquest, deputy state coroner Derek Hand heard from the police officer in charge of the area where Johnson’s clothes were found that it was not a known gay meeting place.

“That evidence appears to have been based solely on the fact that police had not received any reports of any crimes of violence towards homosexual persons having occurred in that area,” Barnes said.

Hand accepted there was no evidence a seemingly happy Johnson, about to complete his PhD at the Australian National University and excelling in his chosen field, would have wanted to kill himself. There was also no suicide note.

Hand thought neither of those things was particularly unusual for a suicide. He placed significance on evidence from Johnson’s partner of five years, Michael Noone, that Johnson had attempted to take his life when he thought he might have AIDS, the tests later coming back negative.

Violence against gay men at beats came under scrutiny in a NSW police investigation known as Operation Taradale, and subsequently in an inquest by then deputy state coroner Jacqueline Milledge into the deaths of the three men near Marks Park south of Bondi. Each had visited the park because it was a beat.

Evidence was given of gay hate offences in the eastern suburbs in the 80s and early 90s, Barnes said in his findings.

Steve Johnson. Picture: AAP

Carmel Forbes, the then deputy state coroner who conducted the second Johnson inquest, was told of the similarities between his demise and the Bondi deaths. Contrary to the evidence at the initial inquest, a police review found Johnson and the men at Bondi had died near gay beats near the top of cliffs, where there had been previous homophobic violence. Potential persons of interest were identified in the police review.

Following a report on the case on the ABC’s Australian Story in February 2013, the then NSW police minister, Michael Gallacher, spoke to the homicide squad’s commander, met Johnson’s brother Steve and approved a $100,000 reward. Homicide detectives launched Strike Force Macnamir and interviewed police and original witnesses, while building a profile on his life and retracing his movements. At the same time, NSW police had formed Strike Force Parrabell to review 88 cases of solved and unsolved homicides from 1976 to 1999 with potential anti-gay bias, Barnes said. Parrabell’s investigations included taking a look at the North Head beat.

In March 2014, Barnes received a request from the NSW homicide squad’s commander for further inquiries into Johnson’s body was found, and decided that with Macnamir’s new evidence it was “in the interests of justice” to hold a third inquest.

Johnson had met his boyfriend Noone, an Australian, at Cambridge University. He moved to Australia in 1986 and lived with Noone in the ACT.

Associate Professor Ross Street, who supervised Johnson in his PhD studies, told the Barnes inquest he was “an excellent student making outstanding progress” solving two major mathematical problems. Two days before Johnson’s death, Street told him he had done enough work on a third problem to be assured of his PhD. Johnson was set to become a permanent resident within months.

Noone had given evidence Johnson discussed an aborted suicide attempt at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Significantly, Noone’s various accounts on the attempt were inconsistent and it might not have gone much beyond a thought, Barnes said.

Each week, Johnson would travel to Sydney for his studies and would stay at the Lane Cove home of Noone’s parents. On December 3, 1988, a party was held there for Johnson’s 27th birthday. Johnson was said to have been talking to a psychiatric nurse, Walter Grealy, at the party when the subject of depression came up; Johnson said he’d twice thought of jumping from a bridge in the past. Grealy said it was no more than a brief comment.

On December 5, Noone drove back to Canberra without Johnson and would never see him again. Noone’s sister, Marguerite O’Con­nell, who was also staying at Lane Cove, spoke to Johnson for the last time the following day. She said he was in good spirits. On the morning of December 8, she saw his feet in his bed. It was the last confirmed sighting of him alive. Later that day, Johnson was in a happy mood when he spoke on the phone to his supervisor, Street.

Two days later, two men and a teenage son of one of the men were heading out in the morning to go spearfishing at Blue Fish Point when the teenager spotted Johnson’s body. On the cliff above, police found Johnson’s neatly folded clothes, but his wallet was missing. Two nights of rain between the last known sighting and the discovery of the body had washed the area clean.

As part of his inquest, Barnes followed dirt tracks through a hole in a stone wall and low scrub until he reached a clearing directly above where Johnson was found.

“There is now a substantial body of evidence that this area was from the 1970s and continuing throughout the 1980s and 1990s a gay beat where men regularly attended to meet other men to engage in sexual activity,” he said.

The isolated spot attracted not only gay men but “bashers” who carried out brutal assaults, the inquest was told. The Operation Parrabell review had found the North Head beat was unlikely to have been a problem area for violence due to its remoteness and rough terrain. But Sue Thompson, a long time NSW police gay and lesbian consultant, said anywhere gay people congregated was “a target location for prejudice related violence”.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller. Picture: Getty Images

Barnes didn’t put much weight into an absence of recorded gay hate crimes at North Head around the time of Johnson’s death, saying he was satisfied from witness testimony that violence did occur there. Men involved in or with knowledge of violent robberies and bashings of gay men were given pseudonyms due to their age at the time or concerns for their safety, and called as witnesses. Evidence emerged of a gang of skinheads in Doc Marten boots, denim jeans and braces going on “gay bashing” missions around Narrabeen in the 80s and 90s. There was a claim men dubbed NP3 and NP4 had made admissions about bashing “an American faggot” at a Manly clearing. Barnes was satisfied NP3 and his group were involved in Manly gay hate crimes but said the claim about an American lacked corroboration. NP3 was dead and NP4 denied it.

Barnes found another man, NP98, and his associates “attacked men at the beat” where Johnson died, but could not be reliably connected to his death. Soldiers housed in an army barracks a short distance from the beat had engaged in gay hate crimes, but there was only a possibility of a link.

Original investigators “quickly jumped to conclusions without thoroughly and impartially examining all of the facts”. Mistakes were made, making it hard to get to the truth. Barnes was satisfied Johnson had died as a result of a gay hate attack, but could not say who did it. NSW police allege they now can — Scott Phillip White, arrested at Lane Cove on Tuesday and charged with murder.

Strike Force Welsford was formed to reinvestigate, led by Yeomans. The reward was increased to $1m in 2018, and Yeomans said in March they were focusing on a “particular individual”. The same month, Steve Johnson offered to match the police reward, raising it to $2m. A tech entrepreneur, he had previously spent a reported $1m on private investigations.

A previous inquest by Barnes into the abduction and murder of Sunshine Coast schoolboy Daniel Morcombe, when Barnes was Queensland’s state coroner, had demonstrated the power of inquests to help solve difficult cases.

Michael Barnes. Picture: Toby Zerna

Mr Barnes, now NSW Ombudsman, on Tuesday expressed his admiration for the Johnsons for their perseverance in seeking answers and said police could be congratulated for continuing investigations after the inquest.

He said coronial hearings could play an important role in shedding new light on cases, but could not comment further as criminal proceedings were now under way.

“The coronial process does bring a different lens,’’ he said

Steve Johnson said it was an emotional day for himself, his two sisters and his brother, who loved Scott dearly. He said it was the same for Steve’s three children, who never got to know their uncle but who admired the way he “courageously lived his life as he wanted to”. And it was the same for “many dozens” who had helped him in “this fight for justice”.