A millionaire's daughter stood in the dock yesterday as a jury heard how she took part in a two-hour crime spree on the worst night of last summer’s riots.
Laura Johnson, 20, ‘exercised extraordinarily bad judgment’ when she got ‘swept up’ in looting electrical goods, alcohol and cigarettes, a court was told.
The former grammar school pupil is accused of driving a getaway car for three male accomplices, who went on the rampage in London.
The Exeter University student claims she was forced to drive the car under duress by three young black men who were not the ‘sort of people you say no to’.
But a jury at Inner London Crown Court yesterday heard that she had acted entirely of her own free will, engaging in a ‘joint enterprise’ to take ‘goods and their thieves from place to place’.
Sandy Canavan, prosecuting, said: ‘She knew what she was doing. This is a young lady who exercised extraordinarily bad judgment on that night.
‘Hers were hardly the actions of somebody who was forced to drive around too scared and frightened and afraid to do anything other than that they are told.
‘The prosecution say that duress is no more than a red herring in this case.’
Dressed in a white blouse, black mini skirt and boots, Johnson spoke yesterday only to confirm her name as she stood in the dock with her co-accused, a 17-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons.
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