Murder suspect 'marries teen girlfriend in secret wedding' while on the run
Jonny Smyth, who is being held in a Spanish prison as a suspect in the murder of John George, married 19-year-old Madison Allen while on the run from police, his new wife claims
A man accused of a brutal murder in Spain is alleged to have secretly married his teenage partner while on the run from police.
Jonny Smyth, a murder suspect now being held in a Spanish prison, tied the knot with 19-year-old Madison Allen during his time on the run, Allen has claimed. Smyth is suspected of involvement in the killing of 36-year-old Belfast man John George, whose body was discovered in a remote orchard in southern Spain earlier this year.
Mr George disappeared in December 2024 while visiting Spain for what was reportedly a short holiday. His body was found on January 7, dumped in an isolated orchard near the town of Rojales, close to Torrevieja on the Costa Blanca. He had been stabbed and shot multiple times, including wounds to his chest and face.
Soon after Mr George's disappearance, Smyth left Spain along with Allen, a model from Newtownabbey, County Antrim. They were traced to an Airbnb in Portugal, booked under Allen's name, where Smyth had been living for about a month. He was arrested there in March 2025 under a European Arrest Warrant and subsequently extradited back to Spain.
Despite being the subject of an active Interpol red notice, Smyth was somehow able to travel to Gibraltar in February with Allen, where the couple were married in a civil ceremony, she said. According to Allen, the wedding took place at The Convent, the official residence of the Governor of Gibraltar - a venue often used for high-profile ceremonies, including royal receptions.
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Allen confirmed the marriage but defended their decision to keep it quiet. '[No-one] public needs to know anything about me, hence why it wasn't uploaded in February,' she said. 'And my partner's case or a murder has nothing to do with a marriage.
"I've already done my bit in court. I was the one who suggested getting married.'
Though she claims to have kept the wedding private, Allen has shared glimpses of her married life on TikTok, including photos of her wedding ring and a screenshot of a virtual prison visit with Smyth. She continues to post regularly from Spain.
Allen is not a suspect in the murder investigation and is not being sought by Spanish authorities. However, the fact that the reported marriage occurred during an international manhunt has raised questions about how Smyth was able to legally marry without alerting authorities - particularly given that he was named in international arrest warrants at the time.
Under Spanish law, marriage between a suspect and their partner could potentially offer legal benefits. Spousal privilege protects certain communications between married couples from being used as evidence in court. However, such privileges are limited and not absolute.
Following his arrest, Smyth was returned to Spain in March and is currently being held in a remand facility in Badajoz, a city in the Extremadura region near the Portuguese border. Court proceedings remain closed to the public in accordance with Spanish judicial norms, and details of the case remain limited.
A second man, Michal Maly, a Czech national, was also arrested in connection with the killing. He was taken into custody on January 10, shortly after Mr George's body was found, and remains on bail while under investigation for being an alleged accomplice.
Mr George's family had reported him missing after he failed to board a scheduled flight back to Belfast on December 18, four days after he was last seen. His disappearance prompted increasing concern until the grim discovery was made weeks later.
The investigation remains ongoing.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Record
6 hours ago
- Daily Record
Pervert teaching assistant cries 'no' as he's arrested over sick videos of schoolgirls
Keiron Pickett, 24, had six videos stored on his iPhone, along with a collection of indecent images and disturbing notes about his students. A teaching assistant was caught filming a series of vile videos at the school where he worked, secretly recording up the skirts of Year 7 girls. Perverted Keiron Pickett had six such videos stored on his iPhone, along with a collection of indecent images and disturbing notes about his students. When officers arrived at the 24-year-old's home to arrest him, he cried "F***, no, no, no" and threatened to kill himself. Pickett's crimes were uncovered after Instagram flagged his "SniffSmoke0151" account and reported it to Merseyside Police on September 9, 2024. As reported by the Echo, Pickett, of Withington Road in Speke, Liverpool, had been linked to the account through his email address. On Friday, Prosecutor Cheryl Mottram told the city's Crown Court that his behaviour quickly "became more erratic," and he had to be handcuffed after making threats to kill himself. He did, however, hand over the password to his iPhone. Inside the device, officers uncovered 62 indecent images and one video in category A - the most extreme classification of abuse - along with 28 images and one video in category B, and 192 category C images. In addition to the six upskirting clips, Pickett had also saved a number of handwritten notes on the phone, which his own legal team described as 'fantasy letters' about his young pupils. He had also carried out several disturbing searches on TikTok related to children. The teaching assistant broke down in tears as he was locked up yesterday. Pickett, who has no previous convictions, was employed at the school in question via an agency between September 2023 and January 2024. Charles Lander, defending, told the court that his client had since completed a series of courses aimed at rehabilitating sex offenders, adding: "It is clear that he will find benefit in this. "He makes candid admissions. The realisation of what has happened to him would be difficult for anyone facing their first custodial sentence, but it is often more difficult for individuals with this kind of offending. He has got his head down. Your honour will have read about the death of his father and issues in his background during his childhood. But, ultimately, he engaged in the behaviour he did." Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Pickett admitted operating equipment under clothing without consent, taking indecent images of children, five counts of making indecent images and possession of cannabis. Appearing via video link to HMP Liverpool wearing a grey Under Armour t-shirt, he was seen wiping tears away before nodding as he was jailed for 20 months. Sentencing, Recorder Mark Ainsworth said: "You were employed as a teaching assistant. Plainly, that is a position of trust for two reasons. The students you were teaching were children, and, also, they had complex learning needs. In both ways, they could be regarded as vulnerable. "You were arrested. Your initial response was to panic. You were visibly distressed, and well you might have been, given that you knew what the police were about to discover. "Needless to say, behind each and every image was a child being sexually abused, some of those images showing the most serious forms of sexual abuse. These images do not show a victimless crime, far from it. The assumption has to be made that, if it was not for people like yourself providing a marketplace for such images, that abuse would not take place. "They were but part of what was discovered by the police. It is clear that, not only had you been downloading indecent images of children from the internet, you had been taking indecent photographs of children yourself. You had been abusing your position of trust at the school to take photographs of the very children you were there to look after and educate. "The notes you made at this time demonstrate what was going through your mind. I hope that you do not need me to tell you how abhorrent this sort of conduct is regarded by society." Pickett was also handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order. He will be required to sign the sex offenders' register for the next decade.
Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Inside the life of the TikTok addict mum who stole half a million: How mum splashed cash on cosmetic surgery and £300k gifts to her favourite influencers
On the surface, Katherine Greenall seemed like any hard-working single mum holding down a full-time job while caring for two young children. But behind-the-scenes, 'manipulative' Greenall had been leading a secret life, swindling nearly half a million pounds from her trusting employers to fund her luxury lifestyle. The 29-year-old, from St Helens near Liverpool, was reduced to 'tears' this month as she was jailed for 28 months for defrauding her employer of £440k. Greenall - called 'Katie' by friends and colleagues - had masterminded a 'sophisticated' and 'calculated' fraud operation in which she faked invoices, hid payments in bulk transfers, and diverted funds under the guise of legitimate business transactions. And what remains even more shocking is what the glamorous mother-of-two spent the eye-watering sum on. While some could show a modicum of sympathy for a mother who, in a moment of madness, turned to petty crime in an effort trying to make ends meet - this was certainly not the case with Greenall. Her ill-gotten gains were not spent on groceries, school uniforms or new shoes, but TikTok. Bizarrely the mother-of-two splashed £300k on 'TikTok coins' and gifted them to her favourite influencers. The remaining £140k was splurged on the likes of holidays, hotel stays, Amazon purchases and cosmetic treatments. TikTok coins are a virtual currency that can be purchased online and 'gifted' to content creators during 'live' sessions, with the influencers usually giving a 'shout out' to gifters. The mother, described as a 'TikTok addict' at trial, is said to have found 'amusement and entertainment' in gifting her favourite content creators. Images found on social media from during the time of her scam show Greenall dressed up and out partying, posing for pictures with friends and getting lip fillers. However, she claimed in court she had not been living a lavish lifestyle and only started stealing from her boss to fund household purchases. The mother was a 'trusted' and 'well liked' employee when her scheme was discovered at startup car firm She had been the first employee the firm, part of the New Reg Ltd business group, had hired and rose up the ranks from customer services manager to accounts manager. Her bosses told MailOnline she was 'absolutely key' to helping the firm grow from a '£0 to £24million business'. However, the company's finance chiefs started to notice shortfalls in their profits and called an urgent meeting in May 2024 to discuss the missing sums. Greenall and her colleagues were urged to look into the discrepancies as a matter or urgency. Her spending spree almost pushed New Reg Ltd, which had been operating since 1995, to financial ruin and put 30 of her colleagues at risk of redundancy. However, the job security of her work friends' was far from the mind of Greenall as she returned to her desk. Instead she made a final deposit of £20k to her own account and fled the office. In a final act of betrayal, she had callously told bosses she had a family emergency and would not be back. A week later, Greenall rang her office and admitted to the fraud. Over the course of 121 payments, she siphoned off £443,523.26 from the company, the Liverpool Echo reported. But despite the large sum, her fraud began on a small scale. She started by making deposits of around £200 at a time in 2023, and by the end of the year had made 53 unauthorised deposits totalling £57,036. She spent the small fortune on supermarket shops, restaurants and cafes, Amazon Prime and sports shops. She also splashed out on family holidays, hotel bookings and even hired a family lawyer. The mother-of-two then ramped up her spending the following year, making another four deposits to her account totalling £8,917 in January alone. In February she siphoned off a further ten payments amounting to £14,916. And the following month her illegal bank transfers had exploded and she took home a shocking £146,288 over the course of 20 payments. By April, Greenall's spending was completely out of control and in the course of just four weeks, transferred herself £196,364.26. And in a final payment on May 1, she deposited herself £20,000 in a single transaction before walking out. When interviewed by police, the young mother claimed she had 'not been living a lavish lifestyle' and had only £700 in her bank account. She explained how the deposits had started off as small and were only used to fund household purchases but quickly ballooned as she spent the cash on TikTok tokens. She confessed to becoming 'addicted' to the social media app and revealed sending the tokens made her feel better during a period where she felt very low. But to bosses at they reject this notion. They said a 'sympathetic portrait' of Katherine has been painted as a 'mum in tears' who had 'simply lost control', but that they hold a 'different account'. 'This wasn't impulsive. It was organised, sustained, and deeply manipulative,' says founder Steven Terence Jackson. 'This wasn't someone overwhelmed by technology. This was someone exploiting trust and abusing freedom, while looking her colleagues in the eye.' The firm said it was 'a deliberate and sustained deception' that unfolded over a long period of time, with more than £100,000 of the ill-gotten gains spent on luxury living 'well before any social media-linked spending emerged'. 'These actions didn't just harm our business; they impacted her family, betrayed her colleagues' trust, and disrespected a team that had supported her throughout.' Out of the enormous £443,523.26 of swindled funds, Greenhall spent £301,162.55 on TikTok tokens in the 21-month period. Chief executive William Fletcher MBE and chief operating officer Anthony Sharkey told of how the fraud had begun as low level transfers. They said: 'In 2023, it was very low level fraud. The way she hid it was to use genuine people and client names but then put in her personal bank details. 'It started with around £200 deposits at a time, which as you can imagine as a company turning over around half a million pounds a week, was hard to notice. 'And then it was in about March 2024 when it went ballistic. That's when she went crazy with it. 'It was unbelievable, that somebody who was in the inner circle, had helped build up the brand, could do this. And she was very well rewarded as well, she went from joining at minimum wage to having a pay package of more than £50k. 'If it hadn't been stopped and continued at the rate that the theft escalated in the final weeks, we would not have been able to continue trading. 'It was an incredible hit. We had to shift focus to protecting the jobs and livelihoods of staff here and I'm glad we were able to. 'We are devastated for her kids. For what purpose she did this we do not understand.' The pair also feel Barclays, who the company account and Greenall's personal account was registered with, had a lot to answer for. They said: 'We feel Barclays is liable for not checking these payments. They should have spotted it. 'They should have the most simple rule they put in place where if the payment name varies on so many instances, you investigate it. 'There's no way this would have happened 100 years ago. 'If we'd gone to the bank with a cheque with details that don't match up to deposit money, then went again the next day, and the next day, more than a hundred times, it wouldn't have happened. 'So why have we gone backwards? I don't understand why we're expected to accept this. 'We feel that if this was a big corporation or a personal account, there would have been more done. 'And why was it not flagged when such a lump sum went into her account?' The pair said they have only been able to retrieve around £2000 from the £440,000 stolen from them. They are hoping the case will alert other small business owner that similar could be happening to them, and have put up a page on their site to unite against the scams. Paul Becker, defending, told the court that Greenall, who had no previous convictions, 'may have been suffering from a form of addiction to TikTok', but stated that she had 'no formal diagnosis to such an addiction'. Mr Fletcher and Mr Sharkey also believe TikTok should have regulated the use of TikTok coins. They said: 'Katie claimed it was an addiction, in which case why is there no regulation over the amount spent on TikTok coins? 'If this was a gambling platform, there would be regulation over it and it wouldn't have gone on for this long. 'The platform also takes a significant commission for all gifts to content creators and we feel there has been a lack of accountability in returning this money.' Greenall admitted one count of fraud by abuse of position. Her two children, a six-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy with severe ADHD, will be cared for by her sister, a nursery care worker while she is in prison. Sentencing, Judge Neil Flewitt KC said: 'You are 29 years of age and of previous good character. You are a good mum to two young children, one of whom has particular challenges. You were trusted and respected. 'Your employers were aware of the challenges that you faced at home and made allowed allowances. 'You repaid their trust in you by stealing from them on a massive scale. Over a period from January 2023 to the beginning of May 2024, you stole almost £450,000. 'You covered you what you were doing by manipulating documents that were used for accounting purposes by the company, and you put that money into your own bank account. He concluded by saying: 'It is a matter of regret that I have a public duty which I have to fulfil. It is a tragedy that those children are going to suffer as a result of your dishonesty. 'I have taken the view that there is simply no way to avoid what I am sure you have been advised is the inevitable sentence of imprisonment. This is simply too much money and too much damage caused here.' A Barclays spokesperson said: 'The protection of our customers' funds and data is our highest priority, and we take every precaution to ensure these are secure. We are sorry to hear about the fraud perpetrated and its impact on our customer. 'We have investigated this case thoroughly, finding no fault from the bank and as soon as we were alerted to this issue, we took every step to recover any remaining funds. 'New Reg Ltd. used a specialist business platform to handle payments, for which some of its employees were authorised users. We provided extensive guidance and tools to the business for this platform to prevent such fraud taking place, including various warnings and a recommendation to implement dual-authorisation, which requires two people to authorise every payment. We encourage them to continue pursuing this matter as a civil dispute.'
Daily Mirror
10 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Teaching assistant wails 'no' as he's arrested over sick videos of Year 7 girls
Keiron Pickett, 24, wailed as officers arrived at his home to arrest him when they caught him secretly recording up the skirts of Year 7 girls - and storing a collection of indecent images of children A perverted teaching assistant was caught filming a series of vile videos at the school where he worked, secretly recording up the skirts of Year 7 girls. Keiron Pickett had six such videos stored on his iPhone, along with a collection of indecent images and disturbing notes about his students. When police arrived at his home to arrest him, he wailed "F***, no, no, no" and threatened to kill himself. The 24-year-old's crimes were uncovered after Instagram flagged his "SniffSmoke0151" account and reported it to Merseyside Police on September 9, 2024. Pickett, of Withington Road in Speke, had been linked to the account through his email address. When officers arrived at his home to arrest him on September 24, he immediately began to panic. He was said to be "visibly distressed" and wailed, "F***, no, no, no." Prosecutor Cheryl Mottram told Liverpool Crown Court on Friday that his behaviour quickly "became more erratic," and he had to be handcuffed after making threats to kill himself. He did, however, hand over the password to his iPhone. Inside the device, officers uncovered 62 indecent images and one video in category A - the most extreme classification of abuse - along with 28 images and one video in category B, and 192 category C images. In addition to the six upskirting clips, Pickett had also saved a number of handwritten notes on the phone, which his own legal team described as 'fantasy letters' about his young pupils. He had even carried out several disturbing searches on TikTok related to children. The teaching assistant broke down in tears as he was locked up yesterday. Pickett, who has no previous convictions, was employed at the school in question via an agency between September 2023 and January 2024. Charles Lander, defending, told the court that his client had since completed a series of courses aimed at rehabilitating sex offenders, adding: "It is clear that he will find benefit in this. "He makes candid admissions. The realisation of what has happened to him would be difficult for anyone facing their first custodial sentence, but it is often more difficult for individuals with this kind of offending. He has got his head down. Your honour will have read about the death of his father and issues in his background during his childhood. But, ultimately, he engaged in the behaviour he did." Pickett admitted operating equipment under clothing without consent, taking indecent images of children, five counts of making indecent images and possession of cannabis. Appearing via video link to HMP Liverpool wearing a grey Under Armour t-shirt, he was seen wiping tears away before nodding as he was jailed for 20 months. Sentencing, Recorder Mark Ainsworth said: "You were employed as a teaching assistant. Plainly, that is a position of trust for two reasons. The students you were teaching were children, and, also, they had complex learning needs. In both ways, they could be regarded as vulnerable. "You were arrested. Your initial response was to panic. You were visibly distressed, and well you might have been, given that you knew what the police were about to discover. "Needless to say, behind each and every image was a child being sexually abused, some of those images showing the most serious forms of sexual abuse. These images do not show a victimless crime, far from it. The assumption has to be made that, if it was not for people like yourself providing a marketplace for such images, that abuse would not take place. "They were but part of what was discovered by the police. It is clear that, not only had you been downloading indecent images of children from the internet, you had been taking indecent photographs of children yourself. You had been abusing your position of trust at the school to take photographs of the very children you were there to look after and educate. "The notes you made at this time demonstrate what was going through your mind. I hope that you do not need me to tell you how abhorrent this sort of conduct is regarded by society." Pickett was also handed a 10-year sexual harm prevention order. He will be required to sign the sex offenders' register for the next decade.
