Adam Johnson found guilty of sexually touching 15yr old girl

• Posted on March 3, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Adam Johnson has been found guilty of sexually touching a 15-year-old girl after grooming her online and meeting her in his car.

He has been cleared of a second charge relating to the girl’s claims she performed oral sex on him.

The judge has said a prison sentence is ‘almost inevitable’ and set a maximum sentence for the charges at 10 years.

The England winger had already admitted grooming the girl and kissing her as they sat in the front seats of his black Range Rover Sport on January 30 last year. But he denied the ‘passionate kiss’ led to anything further.

Johnson’s denial of the charge meant the young victim was put through two gruelling days of cross-examination last month, during which she regularly broke down in tears.

After the jury gave their verdicts this afternoon, Judge Jonathan Rose said his preliminary view was that the case falls into the category of a prison sentence between four to 10 years.

He said: ‘The defendant must understand there is a very high probability of a significant custodial sentence.’

In a emotional statement released after the verdicts, Johnson’s victim said the build-up to the trial has been ‘the hardest year of my life’

She said: ‘I’ve had to face so much abuse after he claimed his innocence. I was made out to be a liar, if anything, I held things back because I didn’t want all of this to come out.

‘What happened in his car has turned my life upside down. I have lost all of my confidence. My school work has suffered.

‘There are people out there who have made assumptions about me and that alone has been hard to deal with. I have been unable to defend myself publically.

‘The gossip on social media and hearing all of the horrible names that people have been calling me has been devastating to me, my friends and my family.’

Johnson was bailed until he is sentence in two to three weeks time. The judge ordered he be under a curfew from 7pm until 7am.

Just before he left the dock, Judge Rose told Johnson that being released on bail meant he could get his ‘affairs in order’.

He said: ‘You can say goodbye to your daughter. A prison sentence will mean you will not see her for some time.’

Explaining his bail conditions, the judge said Johnson would be ‘well advised to stay well aware from social media’.

The former England winger’s career now lies in tatters and his former club Sunderland face questions over why he continued playing for them after he claimed he told them he had groomed, met and kissed the girl.

In a statement issued after the case, Sunderland FC said it ‘refuted’ any suggestion the club knew all along that Johnson was intending to plead guilty to two charges.

The club also insisted it was not involved in tactical discussions about the timings of his pleas.

‘Had the club known that Mr Johnson intended to plead guilty to any of these charges, then his employment would have been terminated immediately,’ the statement said.

-dailymail