Man who kept dead flatmate in freezer for two years jailed

05 December 2023 , 16:08

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Damion Johnson has been sentenced (Image: DerbyshireLive/BPM)

A man who kept his dead flatmate in a freezer for two years has been jailed today.

Damion Johnson, 53, previously admitted preventing John Wainwright's lawful and decent burial. He used Mr Wainwright's bank cards after the 71-year-old man's death.

The pensioner died in 2018 but his body was not discovered until 2020. However, Johnson was sentenced to two years in jail today. Johnson, a qualified care worker, had lived with the man in a flat in Birmingham city centre.

The offences Johnson, who now resides in Litchurch, Derby, has now pleaded guilty to are:

• Preventing the lawful and decent burial of a dead body between September 1, 2018 and August 22, 2020.

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• Fraud in that he used Mr Wainwright's bank card on repeated occasions to pay for goods.

• Fraud in that he used Mr Wainwright's bank card to withdraw money from ATM machines.

• Fraud in that he transferred money from Mr Wainwright's bank accounting to his own.

Sentencing Johnson, Judge Shaun Smith said: "You are 53 years of age and you are before the court for an unusual case. You and Mr Wainwright lived in an ordinary and pleasant relationship.

"He passed away and had you gone about this in a normal way he would have had a funeral but that's not what you did. You bought a chest freezer, that was a deliberate act and you knew what you were going to so.

"You put him in there in 2018 and you left him there. It was not opened until 2020, when that freezer was taken to Budget Skips in Warwickshire, that his badly decomposed body was found to the horror of the man who discovered him.

"You never told anybody about that and during that time you were helping yourself to his money. You lied there had been a funeral and only when the body was found did you make admissions to what you had done."

But, as Derbyshire Live reports, the judge stressed Johnson was not responsible for Mr Wainwright's passing in September 2018. The judge added: "There is no suggestion at all you were responsible for his death, that you in any way contributed to the death or there was anything suspicious about the death (but) your lie was maintained."

Raglan Ashton, defending, said his client accepts he placed the body in the freezer. The lawyer added, though, his client and Mr Wainwright pooled their money together and had "an informal agreement that whoever died first, their proceeds and assets would be used by the other party."

Martin Naylor