Scott White jailed for at least eight years over 1988 Sydney murder of Scott Johnson, judge rules out gay hate crime

The murderer of gay US mathematician Scott Johnson in 1988 has been jailed for more than eight years for a hostile act that a Sydney judge found didn't amount to a hate crime.

US national Scott Johnson was found at the base of a cliff near Manly's North Head in December 1988. Credit: AAP

A Sydney man has been jailed for more than eight years, three decades after murdering an American mathematician at a Sydney gay beat.

The jail sentence was handed down Tuesday by Justice Helen Wilson who found that in a hostile act, Scott White had punched Scott Johnson at North Head in Manly, causing the doctor to fall to his death.

"[White] did a violent act and that act is the direct cause of Dr Johnson leaving the clifftop in terror," the judge said.

The fatal assault was done with reckless indifference to human life, with White throwing the punch near the unguarded edge of a high coastal cliff and then fleeing the scene without notifying the police after Mr Johnson disappeared over the edge.

(L-R) Rebecca Johnson, Rosemary Johnson, and Terry Johnson - who are family members of Scott Johnson - attend the New South Wales Supreme Court on 2 May 2022. Source: AAP / AAP

Justice Wilson found there was not enough evidence to show that the murder was a gay hate crime, however, because White had met Mr Johnson at the Brighton Hotel and the pair had willingly gone to the gay beat together.

The outcome ends a long-running ordeal for Mr Johnson's family who pursued justice for over three decades, refusing to believe an initial police inquest that found the death was a suicide.

White's sentence follows an emotional NSW Supreme Court hearing on Monday where Mr Johnson's family members described the tragedy and heartbreak that the death and following 33 years had brought.

Steve Johnson, brother of US murder victim Scott Johnson, hugs his wife Rosemarie as they arrive at the Supreme Court in Sydney, Monday, 2 May, 2022. Source: AAP / Rick Rycroft/AP

After the hearing, brother Steve Johnson told reporters that speaking in court was a chance to look White right in the eyes.

"I got to tell [White] what my brother was like. I got to tell him how it felt to hear that he was dead ... I have to think it sunk in. He watched and listened," he said.

An appeal of White's conviction has already been filed after his defence team failed to overturn his guilty plea in January.

White was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in jail, and will be eligible for parole after eight years and three months.

While the initial 1989 inquest found Mr Johnson's death was a suicide, the case was reopened in 2012. Another inquest returned an open finding in 2012, but a third in 2017 found Mr Johnson fell from Manly's North Head clifftops because of violence by an unidentified attacker who perceived him to be gay.