Johnny Allen was the villainous father of Ruby Allen and the deceased Scarlett Allen, husband to the deceased Stephanie Allen and boyfriend to Tina Stewart. The character is portrayed by Billy Murray and first appeared on 4 January 2005, making his last appearance on 20 October 2006.
Backstory[]
Johnny was born to a deprived family in Walford in 1943. Dot Colwell (later Branning) remembered him when he was a baby as Johnny's mother bought him home from the hospital and he was the ugliest baby Dot had ever seen. Johnny, an only child, was educated and grew up where he became familiar with the locals such as the Beale family, Ethel Skinner and the Watts family. He attended a street party in Albert Square in 1953 to celebrate the Queen's Coronation. Johnny got into trouble and his dad gave him a good hiding.
Johnny went on to become a boxer from an early age, but got involved in the criminal underworld. In the late 1950s, when he started as an up-and-coming gangster, he employed a well-known young prostitute Pat Harris (later Evans) who had several flings with before she married in 1961. In December 1963, 20-year-old Johnny got Pat to help one of his backstreet prostitutes have an abortion.
Around 1965, Johnny was involved in his first killing - whether he did it himself or arranged for it to be done is unknown.
Johnny also employed a fellow boxer in the late 1960s, named Eric Mitchell. Johnny used to bully Eric because Eric was a better boxer than he was and the two developed a strong feud. Johnny also knew Eric's wife, Peggy Mitchell, who used to try and seduce him out of desperation but he turned her down.
Johnny became a well-known man of the underworld and was notorious in the East End of London because he killed and tortured people including those who worked for him. Johnny left Walford when he grew older, around the early 1970s, in order to expand his flourishing business empire named J.A. Enterprises but he still worked as a gangster when he moved to a mansion in Essex. He married a woman named Stephanie, and they had two daughters: Scarlett (born 1986) and Ruby (born 1988).
In 1994, he began an affair with Tina - a barmaid who worked for him but was many years his junior. She later became his partner. His wife, Stephanie, and his eldest daughter, Scarlett, were killed in an arson attack by one of his criminal rivals.
Storylines[]
2005-2006: Reign of terror in Walford[]
Johnny returned back in Walford in January 2005 to back-up brothers Jake and Danny Moon from the crime boss Andy Hunter, who they had a feud with. Andy was giving Jake and Danny's cousin Alfie Moon a hard time, which led to the feud. Johnny soon began appearing more often to sort out the Moon brothers' problems. After a while, he bought the club "Angie's Den" (renaming it "Scarlet", after his deceased daughter) and the Ferreiras' flat. He moved into 5 Albert Square with his teenage daughter Ruby.
Andy began to despise Johnny. On a mission set by Andy and Eddie (his right-hand man), they decided to double cross Johnny and run off with the profits, cheating Johnny out of his money. This plan was foiled, as Eddie got cold feet and told Johnny what Andy had planned. This led to Johnny killing Andy by throwing him off a motorway bridge in February 2005, coincidentally on the same night of Den Watts' murder. Andy's death was wrongly believed to have been suicide.
After Jake and Danny brought stolen booze into Scarlet, Johnny fired them, leaving them jobless and in debt. Jake accepted the situation, but Danny decided he wanted to pay Johnny back. After Johnny stole his idea for a Salsa night at the club, Danny had enough. On 8 July, he went back to Johnny's house, in a drunken state, and set it on fire. On discovery of the fire, Johnny ran into the house - he couldn't bear the thought of losing his youngest daughter the same way he had lost Scarlet and his wife previously, but found out Ruby wasn't there and at a friend's house instead. Even so, he hunted down Jake and Danny, who tried to run away from Walford. He found them and held them at gunpoint. He drove them to the woods and left Jake behind in his car. He dragged Danny out to prepare to shoot him. Jake smashed the car window and escaped, just in time to change Johnny's mind as he was about to pull the trigger. Johnny then let both of them go and ordered them to leave Albert Square and never return. Jake, however, did return on his own in September, and told Johnny he was there for personal reasons.
Johnny soon got bored with his mistress of 10 years, Tina, and cheated on her with Amy, one of the barmaids working at Scarlet. When Ruby found out, she confessed to Tina, who left Johnny and the Square in November. Johnny and Amy's passion re-ignited on 12 December 2005, after over a month of being apart, but Johnny made it clear to her it was just a one-off.
Johnny thought that he had got one over on the Mitchells when he noticed that the CCTV system at Scarlet had recorded Chrissie Watts confiding in Jake Moon that she had been the one who had murdered her husband Den - a crime for which Sam Mitchell was being held in custody. In order to provoke them, Johnny deliberately let Billy Mitchell see the recording, and when Billy told Phil Mitchell (who had recently got out of jail himself) and Grant Mitchell (who was visiting from Brazil, in order to help Sam) about the tape, they went steaming in to see Johnny about it. A fist-fight ensued that culminated in a stand-off with an armed Johnny in his office. This was diffused by Ruby when she went to see her father at the club. The Mitchells left with the tape and Johnny also revealed that Ian Beale - a long-standing enemy of Phil - was the mystery buyer of the Queen Vic. Johnny's feud with the Mitchells appeared to have settled, but Phil started it up again when he paid Juley Smith to sleep with Ruby, knowing that Johnny would get wound up about it. The plan worked but Johnny hated Juley's relationship with Ruby and tried everything to break them up. As the relationship grew, Juley started to have real feelings for Ruby and wanted to end his deal with Phil to wind up Johnny, but Phil wanted it to continue.
Johnny has since showed an even darker side to his character. After putting in an offer for the Queen Vic, he sparked a war between him and Peggy - whose offer he had outbid. It was soon discovered that there was a certain degree of history between the two. Peggy's deceased husband Eric had worked for Johnny many years earlier. Peggy blamed Johnny's treatment of Eric for the reason why Eric took it out on her. Peggy also had knowledge of Johnny's past crimes, such as cutting the fingers off the hand of a prostitute, and beating up a man for disrespecting him by misspelling something on a birthday cake. Ruby walked into the Vic as the story unravelled. It was here that Ruby began to learn of her father's true past, as well as the fact that he may be to blame for the death of her mother and sister. Johnny became distressed and angered - he had already lost his wife and eldest daughter and was now losing the only thing he had left. As Peggy continued to interfere and protest for the safety of Ruby, Johnny acted nicely, but Peggy continued, only to find Johnny crushing her hand in a door using her birthday cards as bait, whilst taunting '1-2-3-4-5, Once I caught a fish alive.'
Dennis Rickman also became dangerously involved in Phil's vendetta against Johnny. On Boxing Day, Dennis and Sharon Rickman decide to have a housewarming party and invite everyone from the Square, including Juley, Johnny and Ruby. At the party, Johnny had an argument with Juley about his relationship with his daughter and began to insult him. Dennis intervened after laughing at Johnny when the supposed hardman was pushed to the ground by Ruby's friend Stacey Slater. Dennis then threw Johnny out, after humiliating him. Johnny became angry that Dennis was interfering in his affairs and the matter became worse when Sharon came to see him and defended Dennis. Johnny then threatened Sharon by grabbing her by the neck and telling her that Dennis would end up the same way as Andy if he didn't stay away from him. He told her that she and Dennis should leave Walford before midnight on New Year's Eve, or else Dennis will die. She confided in Phil that Johnny was forcing them to leave the Square, but she did not intend to tell her husband about the event. Phil tried to convince Sharon that Johnny must be sorted out once and for all. However, Sharon said that she didn't want things to get worse. She made Phil promise her that he wouldn't tell Dennis, knowing that he would go mad. She managed to convince Dennis that she wanted to leave the Square for a fresh start and he agreed.
Ignoring the promise he made to Sharon, Phil told Dennis, just as they were preparing to leave on New Year's Eve, what Johnny did. Predictably, just as Phil wanted, Dennis went to Johnny's club office and brutally beat him up, leaving him with a swelling to the brain. Johnny begged Dennis to help him and, for Ruby's sake, he tossed him a mobile phone to call for an ambulance. Over at the Queen Vic, Sharon was having a send-off by everyone in attendance and was waiting for Dennis to get a taxi. Just after Dennis had left, Johnny instead called a henchman, while he was on the floor, to kill Dennis. As Dennis walked across the Square to meet Sharon, he was stabbed by a hooded passer-by (later revealed to be Danny) and died in Sharon's arms just seconds into the New Year.
Johnny was in hospital recovering from his beating and Phil started to feel guilty about Dennis dying. He went to the hospital to try and kill Johnny in his sleep, but decided to make him suffer slowly. Phil then ordered Juley to end his relationship with Ruby, so that Ruby would become upset and that would also make Johnny suffer. Juley reluctantly dumped Ruby, who then told Johnny after he got out of hospital. Johnny confronted Juley about why he dumped Ruby and eventually found out after getting the truth out about Juley being paid by Phil to sleep with Ruby. He decided to leave him alone but told him to stay away from Ruby or he would die.
Johnny decided to deal with Phil in his own way. Sharon soon realised that Johnny had played a part in Dennis' death and she started to attack him in the pub just after the funeral. Phil didn't tell Sharon that he had told Dennis about Johnny threatening her and, feeling guilty, he told Sharon that he would take her away from Walford to America for a while. He vowed to sort Johnny out once and for all, when he returned.
When Ruby discovered that Juley had been paid to sleep with her, she got drunk and collapsed of alcoholic poisoning. Phil found her and rushed her to hospital, eventually saving her. When Johnny discovered Phil had saved her, he thanked him as Phil was leaving with Sharon for America. As they were leaving, Phil said to Sharon, 'Johnny is a dead man,' which implied the feud with Johnny and the Mitchells was far from over.
Johnny left Walford on 19 January 2006, when he decided to take Ruby away on a holiday which looked like a permanent one when he put his house and the night-club up for sale. Ruby returned briefly on 2 March, by herself, to collect more of her personal belongings, then revealed to Stacey that she was living with Johnny in Essex.
On 28 March, Phil and Grant returned. Phil tracked down Johnny to his country house in Essex, to get revenge for Dennis' murder. He involved a sceptical Grant in his plan. They were then held captive by Johnny and it was revealed that Johnny had hired the long-absent Danny to kill Dennis and that Danny had recorded the whole thing on a mobile phone for him. Johnny's reason for hiring Danny was because he didn't hesitate to ask any questions about a job and he owed him a favour for when Johnny spared his life before telling him to leave Walford. He ordered Danny to take the Mitchell brothers into a forest and kill them. As Danny was about to follow the orders, his brother Jake turned up and shot him, killing him instantly. Ruby found out about the true extent of Johnny's crimes and contacted the police, threatening to disown Johnny if he didn't confess. Johnny then handed himself in and confessed everything about his life of crime. He was subsequently convicted of being involved in the murders of both Andy and Dennis, along with four others. He later received life imprisonment with a recommendation that he should serve at least 27 years.
In October, Johnny was seen again in prison when Jake contacted him about his concerns about Ruby's new relationship with Sean Slater. Johnny asked Jake to tell Sean that he wanted to meet him. Sean visited Johnny in prison with the unclear idea of wearing a suit and intimidated him, giving out hints that he is only dating Johnny's daughter for her money. Johnny then suffered a heart attack in prison after being verbally attacked by Sean. Johnny went to attack Sean, only for the prison wardens to break up the fight. Johnny then went back to his cell, punching the walls in anger. His cellmate Cahill, who appeared to have contacts with contracted hitmen, followed him out of his cell on his way to the telephone before suffering a heart attack. Johnny believed that he was on the phone talking to Jake and when Johnny's cellmate asked for the person's name he wanted killed, Johnny said "Jake, kill him for me". He later told his cellmate to "Get Jake Moon". The cellmate misunderstood what Johnny was trying to say and thought he wanted Jake killed. Johnny was rushed to hospital but died on the evening of 20 October 2006.
Kill count[]
Murders/manslaughter victims[]
- Unknown person (sometime in the 1960s/70s) - Johnny confessed to the police that his first murder was forty years prior to 2006, unknown if Johnny killed this person directly or had his hitmen do it.
- Unknown person (prior to 2005, revealed on 3 April 2006) - Johnny confessed and was subsequently charged of the murder of four gang rivals.
- Unknown person (prior to 2005, revealed on 3 April 2006) - Johnny confessed and was subsequently charged of the murder of four gang rivals.
- Unknown person (prior to 2005, revealed on 3 April 2006) - Johnny confessed and was subsequently charged of the murder of four gang rivals.
- Andy Hunter (18 February 2005) - Pushed off a bridge over a motorway as revenge for attempting to scam him out of £750,000.
- Dennis Rickman (30 December 2005) (by proxy) - Johnny ordered Danny Moon to kill Dennis, Danny then stabbed Dennis in the chest.
- Jake Moon (20 October 2006) (instigated/death implied only) - Tries to tell Jake to kill Sean but Johnny suffers a heart attack and his cell mate Cahill over hears "Jake kill him for me" and it is taken out of context and Jake ends up getting targeted and possibly killed by Cahill's hitman instead.
Note: It was implied in dialogue between Johnny and the Mitchells that Johnny had killed more than mentioned before arriving back in Walford, However, he could also be telling the truth about killing seven people as he promised Ruby he would confess to all his crimes.
Connected murders and deaths[]
- Scarlett Allen (28th March 2004, revealed on 28 March 2006) (indirectly caused) - Died in a house fire started in retaliation by one of Johnny's rivals.
- Stephanie Allen (28th March 2004, revealed on 28 March 2006) (indirectly caused) - Died in a house fire started in retaliation by one of Johnny's rivals.
- Den Watts (18 February 2005) - After discovering the true circumstances of Den's death, he blackmailed Chrissie Watts and Jake Moon.
Attempted murder victims[]
- Unknown person (prior to 2005, revealed on 15 December 2005) - Attempted to kill a person for unknown reasons, witnessed by his daughter Ruby Allen.
- Dougie Collins (prior to 2005, revealed on 13 October 2005) - Beat Dougie almost to death for making a mistake on Johnny's birthday cake.
- Danny Moon (8 July 2005) - Kidnaps Danny and Jake Moon and plans to shoot them both but is talked out of it by Jake.
- Jake Moon (8 July 2005) - Kidnaps Danny and Jake Moon and plans to shoot them both but is talked out of it by Jake.
- Phil Mitchell (8 November 2005) - After a fight with Phil and Grant over Chrissie Watts confession tape, Johnny prepares to shoot them but Ruby Allen intervenes.
- Grant Mitchell (8 November 2005) - After a fight with Phil and Grant over Chrissie Watts confession tape, Johnny prepares to shoot them but Ruby Allen intervenes.
- Juley Smith (15 December 2005) - After discovering Juley had slept with his daughter Ruby in his bed, Johnny took Juley into an ally way and attempted to stab him with a pair of scissors but was interrupted by Dennis Rickman.
- Sharon Rickman (29 December 2005) - Strangles Sharon as revenge on Dennis for showing him up, Johnny releases Sharon when she tells him she's pregnant.
- Phil Mitchell (28 March 2006) - Prepares to beat Phil to death with a large bat but is interrupted by Grant.
- Grant Mitchell (31 March 2006) (by proxy) - Orders Danny Moon to shoot both Grant and Phil, but Jake moon kills Danny before he can carry out the order.
- Phil Mitchell (31 March 2006) (by proxy) - Orders Danny Moon to shoot both Grant and Phil but Jake moon, kills Danny before he can carry out the order.
- Sean Slater (20 October 2006) (by proxy) - Tries to tell Jake Moon to kill Sean but Johnny suffers a heart attack and his cell mate over hears "Jake kill him for me" and it is taken out of context and Jake ends up getting targeted and possibly killed instead.
Employment history[]
| Occupation | Years active |
|---|---|
| Businessman/gangster/gangland boss/career criminal | 1960s/1970s - 2006 |
| Semi-retired | prior to 2005-2006 |
| Owner of Scarlett Nightclub | 2005-2006 |
Residence[]
| Address | Years |
|---|---|
| Essex | 1970s - 2006 |
| 5 Albert Square | 2005 - 2006 |
| Prison | 2006 |
Crimes[]
- Mass murder
- Murder by proxy (×2)
- Attempted mass murder
- Connected murders and deaths (×3)
- Gangland activities
- Assault
- GBH and ABH
- Robbery
- Possession of a fire arm with intent
- Blackmail
- Money laundering
- Illegal gambling
- Kidnapping
- Incitement to violence
- Torture
- Perverting the course of justice
Background information[]
- Johnny has the highest confirmed kill count of any EastEnders killer with 6 or 7 depending on if Jake Moon was killed or not, ahead of Phil Mitchell (5), Nick Cotton (4), Lucas Johnson (3), Gray Atkins (3), Janine Butcher (3), Ray Kelly (3), Aidan Maguire (2), Ronnie Branning (2) and Ryan Malloy (2). Note: this is taking all forms of murder into account, it is also worth noting that gangster characters like Johnny and Aidan among others have most likely killed more due to their line of work.
- Johnny has committed the joint third highest number of attempted murders with 10, behind Phil Mitchell (22), Ben Mitchell (16), tying with Nick Cotton (10), ahead of Aidan Maguire (9), Shirley Carter (9) and Neil Hughes (8).
- Johnny is, by law, EastEnders' first ever serial killer.