Laura Johnson: How London Gang Culture Seduced the Millionaire’s Daughter From Suburbia
The future was so bright for Laura Johnson. The daughter of a millionaire was heading for university after passing with top grades from one of Britain’s best schools.
Her long term - and equally highflying - boyfriend was coming with her such was their devotion to each other.
Yet less than two years later, Miss Johnson’s life was in ruins after a dramatic fall from grace that led to her being caught up in London’s gang culture and the biggest social unrest to hit Britain for three decades.
Today she was convicted of her part in the looting.
So how did this attractive and vivacious teenager, with the world at her feet, end up being the getaway driver for a gang of drug dealers and robbers during last summer’s riots?
The answer - in what must be every middle class parent’s nightmare - lies in her “going off the rails” after the break up of her relationship and becoming infatuated with a crack dealing gangster.
“She had tried good boys, nice boys, nice people,” said Sandy Canavan, prosecuting.
“She had tried a good life that had got her nowhere. Now she had a bad boy in her life and she loved the thrill of it.”
Miss Johnson’s early life was as far removed as is possible from the lawless “underclass” of Britain’s inner city she came to inhabit.
The daughter of a rich parents, Robert, 56, and Lindsay, 55, who run their own marketing business, she spent her teenage years in a country house in Orpington, Kent, set in landscaped gardens complete with a tennis court.
Laura Johnson with her mother
She wanted for nothing, enjoying all the trappings of a privileged lifestyle, including balls and swimming pool parties at her and her wealthy friends’ homes.
When she passed her test she was given a car.
At first she took full advantage, achieving nine GCSE A grades and four A*s at A-Level from first Newstead Wood School for Girls and then the sixth form of St Olave’s Grammar, the fourth best state school in the country.
Such was her academic success, that she would tutor younger pupils in English.
Like many young girls, she did have issues with her body image and began to self harm. The court heard she once carved the word “FAT” into her thigh.
However these were all swept away when at 16, she met her first love Rebyn Buleti, an equally academically gifted student at the school, and they soon became a couple.
They became so devoted to each that when it came to going onto university, they decided to go together, she studying English and Italian and he law.
A close friend said: “At our school there was a lot of academic pressure, but she did well.
“At home she seemed happy, her parents were together and she would have never wanted for anything.
“She came from quite a privileged background.
“She had a boyfriend from the first day of Year 12 right through to the end of Year 13 and then they went away to University together.
“They were completely devoted to one another.”