How Michael Foran and June Jones' tragic love affair ended with murder
It was a love affair from hell that ended in murder.
Michael ‘Mickey’ Foran was filled with rage after allegedly being sexually assaulted as a child in Ireland and took it out on June ‘Katie’ Jones both physically and emotionally.
She was haunted by the loss of their child through a miscarriage and lived in fear of him but this did not stop her complaining to police about his behaviour in February 2014.
Ms Jones told how, on various occasions, she was up tied up and falsely imprisoned, had clothes cut up, was beaten and had glasses and a bottle thrown at her.
He also made threats against her family and warned she would be ‘cut up’ if she ever tried to leave him.
On July 16, 2014, he pleaded guilty at Wolverhampton Crown Court to putting her in fear of violence through harassment between March 2012 and June 2014.
He admitted to a probation officer that the level of abuse he inflicted had probably ruined her life but the eight-year relationship did not end there.
Simon Wollaston, team leader at Sandwell’s Cranstoun drug and alcohol support agency which had worked with both Ms Jones and Foran since 2013, suggested a reason why this happened.
He said: “She feared he would chop her up if she left him. She believed it was a serious threat and felt she owed it to him to stay together after bringing him to England, particularly since the lost child.
"He had promised he would not hit her while she was pregnant but she said he did.”
The couple met in Ireland before deciding to live together in this country. They were both hard drug takers and lived a chaotic life.
They lived in a tent in the garden at the Malvern home of her mother Iris who was so angry when she saw Foran injecting her daughter with heroin she tried to hit him with her grandson’s baseball bat.
Police were alerted but Foran declined to make a formal complaint.
His partner said her family blamed him for getting her on drugs but insisted: “I did that myself.”
After leaving her mother’s garden they travelled to Worcester where they lived on the streets before finally arriving at the first floor flat in Wyndmill Crescent, West Bromwich, where her life ended.
Works manager Trevor Pritchard, who lives in the same block, said: “When they moved in they seemed OK but they were both on drugs.
"You saw him going to cars parked outside the flats to buy them. There were numerous incidents where they became a nuisance.
“My wife logged these and passed them on to the police.”
Ms Jones told police in a victim impact statement on July 25 2014: “I never thought I would end up living on the streets with Michael.
"He took everything from me, giving nothing in return. I never want to be in fear of anyone again.
"I couldn’t even go to the toilet without him wanting to know where I was going. I was afraid of him making my heart beat harder.
"He beat me with an umbrella, took my shoes and threw them away and then told me to walk back barefooted. He treated me like a dog.”
But she was too scared to end the tempestuous relationship and paid with her life.
Foran strangled the woman he professed to love into unconsciousness and then repeatedly stabbed her with a knife from the kitchen at the first floor flat.
She had 21 knife wounds in clusters around her neck and the left side of her chest.
The defendant was captured on CCTV locking the front door of the premises late on December 10. He never returned and Ms Jones was not seen alive again which makes it the most likely date of the murder.
She was not reported as missing until Boxing Day by her family, who were used to losing touch with her for periods of time.
Her body was not found until police broke into the flat on New Years Eve, three weeks after the probable date of the attack.
WATCH: How killer tried to flee justice was captured on CCTV
Hours after the discovery Foran asked to be taken to Liverpool by his friend Keith O’Dwyer.
The 34-year-old pal’s home in Camberley House, Beaconview Road, West Bromwich, was in view of the flat where the 33-year-old murderer lived and he had seen police activity there earlier in the day but did not have all the details when he agreed to give him a lift.
He was dropped off at the £15-a-night King Harry’s Bar and Hostel in the Anfield district of Liverpool where he stayed for two days.
When he was arrested on February 5 he was sitting on the pavement with a dog begging outside a shop in the city centre.
Full coverage of the trial:
O’Dwyer, accused of assisting an offender, had changed his plea to guilty and was jailed for 16 months shortly before Foran followed suit.
The family of Ms Jones said in a statement after the case: “Justice has been done for our beloved Katie.
"Finally, Michael Foran faced up to the gravity of the overwhelming evidence against him, forcing him to plead guilty to Katie’s Murder.
“We as a family know that the guilty plea will never bring Katie back to us or justify the long term suffering he inflicted upon her and subsequently us.
“We will always miss Katie and will know she will be forever in our hearts. We now as a family hope to move on now justice has been done and Katie can finally rest in peace.”
