‘McCann troll’ left her parents in squalor as she spent their savings
A woman dubbed the McCanns’ troll after a campaign questioning the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine left her own parents in squalor after blowing £18,000 of their money on luxuries.
Deborah Butler hit the headlines in 2009 by distributing leaflets giving ‘10 key reasons which suggest Madeleine was not abducted’.
Some were delivered to the Leicestershire street where Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry live.
The 51-year-old, was then chairman of the Madeleine Foundation which had no connection to the McCanns, whose daughter has not been found after disappearing from a Portuguese holiday apartment in 2007.
Butler insisted she simply wanted the then-closed investigation to be re-opened.
Away from the spotlight the mum, of Grace Avenue, Allington, set herself up as official carer to parents, Alan and Dorothy Johnson, who suffered from dementia.
In 2011 she took control of their bank cards, which they did not know how to use, and went on a spree buying a TV, laptop, designer clothes, a Spanish holiday, plus more mundane essentials such as petrol and food.
Carers’ allowances and the couple’s pension also went to her bank account.
Butler’s sister Michelle Johnson found horrific con- ditions at the seaside flat in Eastbourne as the couple struggled to cope.
She said: “Dad was emaciated, with faeces all over him. Faeces were also over the kitchen towels and every item of clothing – there were no clean clothes. Food was rotting in the cupboards and the toilet was full.
“It was squalor. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
Mrs Johnson died in October 2011.
Following her arrest Butler insisted purchases were for her parents. But investi- gators were adamant everything bought was being used at her Kent home.
She denied four charges of fraud totalling £18,411 at a trial in December but was convicted. She later helped search teams looking for Pat Lamb but did not handle any of the cash donations to fund searches.
At Lewes Crown Court on Friday she was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years.
After the KM approached Butler she said: “I hold my hands up to the fact I’ve been convicted but I dispute any suggestion I abandoned my parents. I was there for two years. When they were discovered, I had been on holiday and left an aunt in charge but I was horrified to learn she didn’t visit.”
She stated she has never wished the McCann family any harm.
DC Julie Nightingale, of Sussex Police, said: “The vulnerable victims were treated as a stream of income.
“Butler left them in squalor while she enjoyed life at their expense.”