'I'll kill us both', said speeding crash driver

A "JEALOUS" ex-boyfriend deliberately crashed his car at high speed with his former partner inside after telling her "I'm going to kill us both".

- BY ADAM EVERETT

Michael Flanagan ploughed his vehicle into a tree while travelling at around double the speed limit following his disturbing reaction to the end of their short-term relationship.

The incident came only a day after he had crept into his estranged girlfriend’s home armed with a knife and said “I was going to stab yous” having been under the “paranoid” belief that she was seeing another man.

While he “intended to cause really serious injury” to his passenger during the subsequent collision, she miraculously escaped from the smash relatively unscathed.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that Flanagan, of Holmwood Close in Formby, began a relationship with Shannon Johanson in October of last year. However, after only two weeks, the 26-year-old was said to have started to “display signs of being paranoid and suspicious”, leading to her calling for a break in their partnership.

Frank Dillon, prosecuting, detailed how, when she thereafter told the defendant that she was spending the evening at her grandparents’ house, he “became increasingly jealous” and accused her of planning to meet another man. Ms Johanson decided to end the relationship as a result.

Then, on the evening of November 23, 2024, she received a message from a neighbour, informing her that a man had entered her home in Thornton while she was out. When she returned to the property with her grandad in tow, she found Flanagan inside.

When Ms Johanson challenged him over his presence, he responded by pulling a large kitchen knife from underneath her bed. He then told her: “I thought you had someone else here, so I was going to stab yous.”

Flanagan went on to call his ex-girlfriend the following day stating that he needed to collect his belongings from her address and Ms Johanson agreed that he could collect her from her grandparents’ house in order to do so.