Man stalked bus driver he believed was 1950s pop star Johnnie Ray for decades

A British man has been jailed after stalking a bus driver he believed was American singer-songwriter and musician Johnnie Ray. Photo / Getty

A man who stalked a British bus driver for nearly 60 years in the belief he was the 1950s pop star Johnnie Ray has been jailed for three years.

Kenneth Furnival, 75, bombarded John Ray, 78, with an “avalanche” of love letters and unwanted gifts over a six-decade campaign in one of the longest cases of stalking ever recorded.

Furnival’s obsession with his victim began in 1964 when John Ray, then 18, checked his bus ticket, Chester Crown Court heard.

Aged 15 at the time, he would send multicoloured notes to Ray in which he referred to him as Johnnie Ray, complimenting him on his “blonde hair and blue eyes” and asking for signed pictures of him dressed in a blue pullover.

When Ray ignored or burnt the letters, Furnival began secretly taking pictures of the father of two and his family and covertly spied on them as they went out on day trips to the seaside.

One letter from Furnival referred to a date when Ray took his wife Jean to a restaurant and his jealousy at seeing them kissing. He also sent him Johnnie Ray CDs and DVDs.

The Rays knew nothing about Furnival or what he looked like. They repeatedly tried to report him to police and handed over large bundles of letters he had sent but officers took no action, claiming they were harmless.

In 1979 they hired a lawyer to take civil action against their tormentor, which resulted in him being jailed for flouting a court order, but Furnival still refused to give up his bizarre obsession.

During their ordeal the Rays never let their sons play outside as they had their father’s looks and they feared Furnival would target them too. They moved house and even changed surnames in a bid to be free of him but he would eventually catch up with them and the letters and gifts would start again.

Furnival, from Runcorn, Cheshire, was finally arrested in 2023 after the Rays captured him on their security camera when he delivered letters and a parcel of CDs through their door during a postal strike.

He had earlier sent them a Christmas card with a letter which read: “In 2023, I will burn £100 ($214), in 2024, I will burn £200, in 2025, I will burn £300, and stick it down your letterbox until it gets to £1,000. Money is no good to me unless I can buy photos of you, John Ray.” He signed off: “Kenneth Furnival, the man who knew too much.”

Police, fearing an arson attack might be imminent, searched Furnival’s home and found a framed picture covertly taken 35 years earlier of Ray on his bedroom wall. When interviewed he talked fondly of Ray’s namesake who was known as the Prince of Wails for his ballads Cry and Please Mr Sun, and who died in 1990.

In court, Jean Ray, 73, who married her husband in 1973, spoke of their ordeal as Furnival was jailed after admitting stalking. “It was creepy and I was in a permanent state of anxiety,” she said.

“His letters made comments about my husband’s blond hair and blue eyes and the singer Johnnie Ray. My mother even asked us to leave her house despite me looking after her.

“There were also comments about the movements with my children and those really frightened me as my son was, at that time, 3 years old, blond and with blue eyes, and he had to endure the most overbearing mother as a result.

“I had never seen this man. I never knew where he was and yet he could comment on all our movements. We had our second son 12 years after the first, and he was another with blond hair and blue eyes, so that was another cause for concern.

“This man seemed to know everything. We still did not know who he was, only his name, not who or what he was. I could have passed the time of day with him and not even known. My children were never out of my sight for much longer than they should have been. They were not able to go to the park unless I could go too. They had little freedom to grow. It became a way of life.”

She added: “I am now stuck in replay flashbacks, it’s horrible. I cannot get it out of my mind. All those years of being ridiculed and I was not wrong.

“We now live in our house surrounded by cameras and the stress has affected my relationships with other people.

“I had to bring up my children, overreacting for fear over their safety, and it affected my marriage. I have conducted a whole 50 years of my life with this intrusion. This has been an absolute nightmare. I have felt unsafe, angry, frightened and I felt that this will never end.”

In mitigation, Furnival’s lawyer Sarah Badrawy said her client had a “mental and neurodevelopment disorder”, adding: “He is particularly susceptible to pressure, easily led and manipulated.”

But sentencing Judge Michael Leeming told Furnival: “You harboured an infatuation, an obsession, for over 50 years with the complainant which shows this offending was not isolated behaviour on your part or in any way out of character.

“You sent unwanted gifts, DVDs, CDs and letters on an extremely regular basis, going to his address and following him unseen. There has been similar behaviour, which dates as far as 1964. The letters caused Mr Ray extreme distress, to both him and his wife.”

Summing up Furnival’s actions, he said: “These offences have involved a high degree of planning and persistence.”

Furnival was handed an indefinite restraining order prohibiting him from contacting the Rays. They declined to comment afterwards.

Danielle Reece-Greenhalgh, partner at Corker Binning, said: “This is a case in which, for an extraordinary length of time, the defendant was not properly investigated by police.

“Harassment persisting for over 50 years is almost unheard of, and the police’s inaction perhaps reflects archaic attitudes about how stalking behaviours manifest and who ‘typical’ offenders and victims of harassment and stalking might be.”