Let This Be Our Secret

by Deric Henderson

  Once the inquest of May 1992 was out of the way, Howell received £120,000 from Lesley’s life insurance. He had been in two minds about what to do, before putting in the claim, however. He read the small print of the insurance policy carefully to make sure that there were no exemption clauses covering the case of death by suicide, and discovered that no such clauses applied. He knew that he was committing fraud – since Lesley’s death was the result of murder, not suicide – but he felt others would be suspicious if he failed to lodge the application. He later insisted that financial gain had never been a motive for the killing of Lesley. However, there was no doubt that this money – and the sum of £212,000, of which he was also the immediate beneficiary after Lesley’s death (as a result of her late father’s will) – must have helped considerably to alleviate his financial difficulties at the time. Howell had invested a third of the life insurance money in the purchase of a bungalow in Portstewart, which he rented out to students and which he sold for a very satisfactory profit (£13,500) shortly after he met Kyle.

  Meanwhile – thanks in some part to the improvement in his financial circumstances – Howell’s career in dentistry was going from strength to strength. The Ballymoney practice was flourishing, and in February 1999 he was able to take on another new associate – Robin Alexander from Irving in Scotland. Alexander, whose wife Patricia, a dental hygienist, was originally from Ballymena, qualified in Glasgow and had ten years of professional experience before he came to work for Howell. The two men got on very well, and four years later, in 2003, Alexander bought a share in the Ballymoney practice for some £220,000.

  With Robin Alexander full time in Ballymoney, Howell started to shift his focus to an area of practice in which he had become increasingly interested – implantology. It represented more of a challenge than his standard NHS and private patient work, and the driven and ever-ambitious Howell was only too aware that it was financially a far more lucrative field to be in. The prospect of the greater earning potential was a huge draw for him, especially with an ever-expanding second family to support. In 1999 he opened his Causeway Dental Implant studio, having converted part of the first floor of the Ballymoney premises. The two businesses – the general dental surgery and the implant studio – shared the same reception, but the practices operated more or less independently of each other, with Howell concentrating exclusively on implants and cosmetic work. Alexander managed the general and more routine side, and there were days and sometimes weeks when the two dentists would hardly see each other. Howell also owned the top-floor apartment, from which he was able to make some additional income as a rental property.

  As ever, Howell applied himself with great energy and dedication to developing his new specialism and to keeping things ticking over in the general practice. Life was very busy at the time. He was forever on the go and, with a big family to look after, he never found himself with much free time. He always seemed to be in a hurry and often worked through the lunch hour. When occasionally there was a gap in his appointment schedule, he might pick up a newspaper down in the reception area and quickly flick through the pages and have a word or two with whoever was on duty, before rushing upstairs to his office again. He was an exacting boss and colleague, and he expected those who worked with him to display the same dedication to the job as himself. One ex-member of staff remembers when he first opened in Ballymoney: ‘[Howell] was a workaholic and very, very driven in terms of what he wanted to do and achieve, especially when it came to making money. He would have come in at 3 a.m. to see a patient. He expected the other dentists to do the same … He was plausible about the whole thing. He would say to patients: “I know you are working nine to five with a family and can’t come in to see me. But listen, I’ll go home and have my tea and I’ll see you at 8 p.m.” He made it sound as if he was bending over backwards to help people. In actual fact, he was helping himself. It was all part of the image he was trying to create, this really caring, conscientious person.’

  Howell rarely discussed religion with his staff inside the practice. But he did not miss an opportunity to make his dedication to his religious principles and his status as a deeply moral member of the local community felt among those who worked with him, often in a rather sanctimonious way. At staff nights out, he would drink very little and generally either arrived late or left early, citing church or babysitting commitments. One summer, he refused to attend a staff outing to the Grand Opera House in Belfast to see the musical, Mamma Mia!. Asked by one of the girls who was booking tickets in advance for the party whether he would be joining them, he pronounced loudly that his conscience would not allow him to go: ‘I’m sorry. Mamma Mia! is about a woman who does not know who the father of her daughter is. I cannot make myself go to a show about that. I don’t approve of it.’ It was 2008, just months before he confessed all to the church elders and then to the police.

  After work and family, church affairs dominated the devout dentist’s life. There would be Baptist breakfast meetings at the Lodge Hotel in Coleraine. Every now and again he would ask friends and acquaintances to join him. Not all accepted. One businessman became so exasperated with the repeated invitations that he eventually said to him: ‘Colin, no harm to you, but don’t ask me again. I’m just not interested.’ Howell drank very moderately – maybe two glasses of wine with dinner – and exercised assiduously, playing golf, squash, five-a-side soccer, cycling and regularly going running. He also had an array of gym equipment at his home.

  The implantology practice was thriving and bringing in substantial sums of money. In 2003, he paid £75,000 for a share in a practice in Bangor because, being close to Belfast, it had a much larger catchment area and was an ideal location from which he could promote his work and develop his reputation. He was based there two days a week. His partner in the Bangor practice was another dentist who specialized in implantology and cosmetic work. After this, in 2004 Howell took on another Scot – David Wilson from Glasgow – as an associate in the Ballymoney practice. Wilson’s brief was to take on a number of Howell’s NHS and private patients in the general practice with Robin Alexander so that Howell could devote himself full time to expanding the cosmetic side of the business.

  Like other dentists at the time, Howell was quick to recognize that implantology was a growth area in commercial dentistry. But unlike others perhaps, it seems that he did not have any qualms about presenting himself as an expert, even though he had very little training or experience. Several of his contemporaries have claimed that he declared himself a specialist in implantology after undergoing a course in Manchester in 1999 which lasted for a mere couple of days. Howell lectured a few times to students at the School of Dentistry at Queen’s and, through his connections with a big UK pharmacy company, organized courses and talks on various aspects of implantology. At one time, he was hosting regular monthly sessions at the Lodge Hotel, Coleraine. Here, he might talk for forty-five minutes or so to an audience of up to a dozen dentists, after which they would all have an opportunity to participate in group discussions on specific cases. After completing a certain number of sessions, those who had regularly attended were given a certificate. Howell also became a Fellow of the International Team for Implantology.

  The dentist’s quest for professional recognition knew no bounds and was not tempered by any consideration that he might not have the substance to back up his claims of expertise. One dentist commented, using a very apt metaphor: ‘This was all part of his growing stature. There was a thin veneer of truth, but very, very thin. When you scratched the surface, it wasn’t all as it would seem.’ But Howell was not about to let such concerns stop him. Ever the risk-taker and always the opportunist, he was determined to make the most of whatever breaks came his way to further his thriving career.

  In July 2005, after graduating in dentistry in Belfast, a young Jordanian called Mohammad Husban arrived at Howell, Alexander and Associates in Ballymoney to take up his first job. In many ways, the arrival of the young man on the scene at
this particular juncture was to be a godsend in terms of Howell’s commercial interests. And perhaps that is exactly how Howell would have seen it himself at the time – as an opportunity sent directly from God.

  Mohammad’s father, Yasin Husban, was a top Jordanian dentist. He had held the rank of Major-General in the Jordanian Royal Medical Services, during which time he treated King Hussein himself on one occasion. He opened his own private dental practice in Amman in 2000. Yasin had done his Master’s degree in dentistry at the University College of London’s Eastman Dental Institute in the mid-’70s, and had been keen for Mohammad, the eldest of his three sons, to be educated in Britain as well. A couple of professors from the School of Dentistry at Queen’s who met Yasin during a trip to Jordan had suggested that his son go to Belfast to study. After all, it was one of the best universities in the UK, particularly for the medical sciences. Mohammad duly arrived in Northern Ireland to begin his studies in September 1998.

  When he started working for Howell at the Ballymoney practice in the late summer of 2005, Mohammad found his new employer to be very welcoming and hospitable. In fact, for the first eight months of his three years in the County Antrim town the young man lived in Howell’s top-floor flat above the surgery, some of the time rent-free. He was very quickly made to feel like a valued member of the staff and he enjoyed taking part in regular team-building days, involving all sorts of outdoor activities which included camping in County Fermanagh, and also staff nights out to the theatre in Belfast. According to friends, Mohammad considered Howell to be an excellent dentist who treated him well during his three years’ training. He would always be financially reimbursed when he bought any fittings for the apartment, and Howell would also refer some of his private patients to the young dentist to do fillings and whitening.

  The Howells were also very hospitable when Mohammad’s parents, Yasin and Hana, came to Northern Ireland to visit their son. They put the couple up in the family home in Castlerock, showing them around their son’s workplace and taking them out for dinner at the fashionable Ardtara Country House outside the village of Upperlands. One night, however, Howell forgot to inform staff that his guests were of the Muslim faith, and there was an awkward moment when the main course arrived with bacon trimmings. The plates were sent back to the kitchen, as the host apologized for any offence caused. Luckily, the guests just laughed it off. Howell got on famously with Yasin, and, as well as their common interest in dentistry, they were both avid soccer supporters of Manchester United. And the dentist did not miss the opportunity to let the local media know about his high-profile guests: the local newspaper, the Ballymoney Times, ran an article about them that week which featured a photograph of the smiling Howell and his staff with the two visitors from Jordan, and was headlined: ‘A Crown with a Difference for Local Dentist’.

  Friends of Mohammad were in no doubt that Howell used his father’s fairly limited connection with the King of Jordan to promote his implant business. And given how well the Husbans’ visit to Northern Ireland had gone, it was hardly surprising that in May 2006, when Yasin, as Chairman of the Congress Committee for the Jordanian Dental Association, was charged with organizing their twentieth annual conference at the luxurious Le Royal Hotel in Amman, Colin Howell was one of the delegates from Northern Ireland invited to give a presentation. It was a hugely prestigious and high-profile international event. Other speakers invited included two representatives from the School of Dentistry in Belfast, Professor Tom Clifford (head of Prosthodontics) and Professor Philip-John Lamey (Professor of Oral Medicine).

  The Amman conference was a vast and impressive gathering. There were 1,500 delegates from all over the world, including Italy, Germany, Australia, Lebanon, Greece, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Syria and the United States. The conference covered all aspects of dentistry, including prosthetic dentistry, conservative dentistry, endodontics, orthodontics, implantology, oral and maxillofacial surgery, the use of lasers in dentistry, periodontology and paediatric dentistry. As well as the lectures and courses, there were many important social events to attend outside the conference hall. Organized tours were laid on, with trips to view the Roman ruins in the city of Jerash, the ancient settlement of Petra and the Dead Sea; delegates were taxied everywhere and accompanied by attentive guides. Howell was in his element as he smeared himself with the mineral-rich black mud on the Dead Sea shoreline before lying back to float in the water. Sociable and outgoing when it suited him, he quickly made an impression on those around him. One delegate remembers: ‘He was a very outspoken guy and you could become friends with him really easily. People liked him because of his friendliness. He was interested in people and their culture, and he was not afraid to ask questions. He could also share a joke …’ The night before the conference started, Howell and his party were invited to the Husbans’ family home.

  On the first day of the conference, the ambitious Northern Irish dentist delivered a lecture entitled ‘Implant in the Aesthetic Zone’. He focused mainly on the cosmetic side but covered other aspects of dentistry as well, such as cross-infection control in the general practice, bone-grafting products and techniques, and implant design. On the second day Howell performed a procedure for his audience by completing the final stages of some implant work on a patient. Forty dentists in a lecture theatre at the King Hussein Medical Centre were also able to watch Howell at work via video link. He rose to the occasion admirably and his performance was well received. Some of the delegates, however, had their doubts about his bona fides, one of them remembering: ‘The lecture he gave was all about how he did things, and what he thought. There was no evidence-based scientific analysis to prove to people what [he was] saying was correct. It was all wishy-washy stuff. There was no scientific paper. It was all about Colin. It was all about Colin’s ego. It was typical Colin.’

  Once he was back home, Howell wasted no time in capitalizing on the success of his Jordanian venture and maximizing the kudos of the high-profile contacts he had made. He placed an advertorial in the Sunday Tribune newspaper which was headlined ‘Operation Smile’ and included text which claimed: ‘In fact, he counts the Jordanian Royal family, its government ministers and dignitaries as some of his more high-profile patients.’ Howell himself was quoted as saying: ‘The King of Jordan wanted his team of dentists brought up-to-date on procedures, and I actually performed live surgery at a lecture I was giving on quality dental implants … with over 400 dentists watching.’ In the same piece, Howell recommended a particular make of implant which he described as the ‘Mercedes of Implants’, adding: ‘If it’s good enough for the King of Jordan, it’s not too shabby for us mere mortals.’ He claimed that there were only six practices in Northern Ireland with the experience to provide the range of treatments he offered, and insisted that price was very important and a measure of a dentist’s expertise. He generally quoted between £1,600 and £2,100 for one implant, complete with a crown, and he warned patients against those quoting any less: ‘If you are being quoted the [a] lower price, then you probably shouldn’t go there, as either the dentist is a very inexperienced dentist, or is using budget implants.’

  Some of Howell’s fellow professionals were less than impressed by his credentials and his exaggerated claims, as one confirms: ‘There was something in a dental magazine which claimed that he treated Queen Rania. It just wasn’t true. Somebody raised it with him. Colin said it must have been an error by the guy who wrote the article, and he would let them know. But to the best of our knowledge, he never did.’ Another dentist remembers: ‘He inflated the truth of exactly what he did. He was taking full-page adverts in glossy magazines and it was a strategy which seemed to work. Patients came from far and wide, including the Irish Republic. I never heard of any complaints, but obviously there were some. He certainly performed treatments that would have been stretching the normal rules of clinical practice and maybe sometimes breaking them.’ Another dentist felt equally critical of Howell’s work: ‘I think that patients were disappoi
nted when some of the procedures didn’t work out. These … may have been outside the realms of traditional dentistry. They seemed to be risky, unpredictable and therefore more likely to fail, which meant it made it harder to go back and do corrective work … I have had to do that corrective work.’

  Howell was keen to create and feed the impression that he was a major global authority on implantology who treated the rich and famous. But specialists in the field were more than a little sceptical about his abilities and ethics: ‘We viewed him as a common or garden general dental practitioner with a particular interest in one area of dentistry, in the same way as somebody with a special interest in orthodontics. It was an extra string to his bow, but nothing special. He was never considered by any of us to be somebody we would look up to.’

  But there were plenty of patients who were more than impressed by his PR and, taken in by the hype, were happy to travel to Ballymoney. His local customer base expanded ever more rapidly, with many patients also travelling up from the Irish Republic, where dental charges were twice and sometimes three times as expensive. Dentists in Dublin, Cork and Galway, who might have spent three years being trained in implantology at some of the top units in the United States, were coming back home looking for a fairly quick return on their investment, but not all of their patients could afford their prices for root canal treatment, crowns, fillings and implants. For such clients, even Howell’s fees were considerably lower.

  By the mid- to late 2000s, the dentist’s earning capacity was huge and he was making substantial sums of money, year on year. There was never any shortage of women in search of a brilliant new smile. One couple paid him £35,000 for cosmetic treatments over a three-year period and were delighted with his work. Things were on the up-and-up for the Howell family. After Freehall Lane, once building was finished on their family home they moved into the fabulous new property just off the Glebe Road. Painted a primrose colour, down a narrow, stony, twisting lane and with a trout lake near by, the house had wonderful views across open countryside and ample, well-landscaped gardens, as well as a terrace at the front which caught the early morning sun.