BY TIM PARSONS
Ex Sunderland footballer Adam Johnson has appeared in court to attend the trial for his alleged sexual activity of a 15 year old girl. The girl who is now 16 was allegedly idolised 28 year old Johnson and went as far as to make a facebook request to the footballer, which he happily accepted.
But the court wre told that Johnson, who has 12 England caps “abused his revered position in society” by having sexual activity with a 15 year old fan. Prosecutors said it was “in a way that he knew was both morally and legally wrong”.
FAN
Prosecutor Kate Blackwell QC told the court that the girl was a passionate Sunderland Football Club fan and Mr Johnson was her favorite player.
“After matches, she would hang around waiting for a glimpse of him, wanting to get a photograph, often sporting a Sunderland shirt with Johnson’s name emblazoned across the back,” she told the court.
“What has brought the defendant to this courtroom is a sexual desire for (the girl), an excessive arrogance and an unwarranted level of expectation.”
“She had one enormous crush on him,” Miss Blackwell said. “He was her absolute hero. She idolised him.”
She then recounted a time when Johnson asked the girl “Where do you go out?” She replied “I’m not old enough to go out.” “Yeah, but you look old enough,” he allegedly replied.
The prosecution read out to the jury was read an exchange of messages between the pair in which he arranged to meet her so he could sign a football shirt. The messages showed quite clearly that the girl stated she was a Year 10 student and one month past her 15th birthday. She added that everyone looked older.
However, the prosecution’s case is that this did not put off the 28 year old footballer whose wife was pregnant at the time. Instead, he arranged to meet her up on 17 January 2015 near a Chinese takeaway close to the girl’s home. She got into his black Range Rover, where he signed football shirts. Further messages followed the meeting and the issue of whether Mr Johnson deserved a thank you kiss for the shirt-signing “or more” is said to have come up.
Miss Blackwell said the pair met again, on 30 January, when they had sexual contact in the footballer’s car at the same location. This story looks bad on the footballer, although the presumption of innocence until proven guilty always goes without saying. One other question that arises is why an under aged girl who supposedly has sex with a footballer will go to the police. One plausible guess is that she would brag about it to her friends until it gets to the ears of an adult and then her parents, who then compel her to speak to police.
Another is that a girl who has sex with a celebrity can later feel sidelined and decide to punish the footballer for it. This is why it is stupid for celebrities to cheat on their partners even with women of legal age, let alone under aged girls. The view it will go undetected is always naive at best. Johnson may in theory be the innocent victim of some kind of exploitation or malicious scheme, but if he even met a 15 year old girl on his own to sign anything, this was most stupid and irresponsible! The smell of danger should have alarmed him even at knowing her age. Now, the prosecutor told the court that sexual activity took place in the car and that the defendant and the girl kissed with tongues for some time during which the defendant unbuttoned her jeans and undid the zip.
SECLUDED
“What happened in that car on that evening is for you to decide”, the eloquent prosecutor continued, as she confidently asserted with a degree of subjective certainty that drove to a ”more secluded place” as he was expecting further sexual contact and wanted to ensure ”they could not be overlooked”
The prosecutor then described further sexual activity and said that after this encounter there were further messages between them. In one, Mr Johnson said to the girl: “It was class.”
He added: “Just wanted to get your jeans off, LOL.”
The girl replied: “Next time.” The jury were also told that Mr Johnson had researched “legal of age of consent” on the Internet.
She said: “The Crown suggest that such a search to satisfy such an interest is unlikely to have resulted from a kiss and no more than a kiss, as the defendant contends.”Johnson denies the charges, but cannot deny the terrible nights he will have until this case over. The case will continue.
