'DECEITFUL, REPUGNANT, PAEDOPHILE'

The disgraced winger deserves every syllable of condemnation that will come his way after he was found guilty of sex offences against a 15- year-old girl on Wednesday.

Adam Johnson will no longer be known for his ability on the football pitch. His past achievements of winning the Premier League, FA Cup and 12 England caps hold no significance. From now on, the former Middlesbrough, Manchester City and Sunderland winger will be remembered as a convicted sex offender.

On Wednesday afternoon at Bradford Crown Court, a jury of eight women and four men found him guilty by majority verdict of 10-2 on one count of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl. This came after he had already pleaded guilty to one charge of grooming and one count of sexual activity with a child. He was found not guilty on a charge relating to another sexual act.

The disgraced Johnson is not “the villain of the piece” as his defence barrister Orlando Pownall QC tried to have the jury believe in his closing statements last Friday. He took advantage of his hero status to abuse a young Sunderland fan, who was forced to recount her experience in the three-week court case.

After the verdict, Johnson's victim released a powerful
statement in which she revealed the devastating impact that the ordeal has had on her health.

"It’s been the hardest year of my life," she said in a statement. "I was made out to be a liar. What happened in his car has turned my life upside down. I have lost all of my confidence. 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.

"There have been times when I’ve wanted to hide away from the world. There have been times when I’ve tried not to show people how upset I am, but sometimes it hasn’t been possible and I’d just cry. I’ve felt so broken.

"I hope Adam realises the hurt and damage he has
caused. I now want to put this awful experience behind
me and begin to rebuild my life."

National Association for People Abused in Childhood
(NAPAC) provides aid to adult survivors of child abuse.
The organisation's head of public affairs, Kath Stipala,
fears that Johnson's abuse at the trial will haunt the
victim, now 16, into her adulthood.

"The time that the legal process can take, and people
have to retell their accounts of the most humiliating and
degrading experiences you've ever suffered in your life,"
she told Goal after the trial had concluded. "Having to
talk about it publicly, over and over again, it's quite a
hostile situation.

"The court process can be really traumatising, especially
things like defence questioning, being called a liar, and
aggressive behaviour. People who when they first
disclosed they were abused might have been called a liar
if they were a child who told someone. So when they get
called a liar in court, that's a really traumatising
experience."

Ms. Stipala added: "It's a child, it doesn't matter what
they wanted the person to do. The onus is on the adult
to behave appropriately." Johnson knew that the girl was
still at school and was under 16 years of age, but that
didn't stop him.

The whole affair began on December 31, 2014 after the
girl had attracted Johnson’s attention by asking for his
autograph outside Sunderland's ground, the Stadium of
Light.

They met in private the following month on January 17,
2015 and, again, 13 days later. There was disagreement
over the second meeting – the victim claimed they
engaged in two sex acts, whereas the defendant denied
it went any further than kissing.

The 28-year-old was sacked by his club Sunderland on
day one of the trial, February 10, after changing his plea
to guilty on two of the four charges against him having
originally given no plea.

Johnson exchanged 834 WhatsApp messages with the
victim, making a string of "creepy" comments and
remarking that the girl "owed" him for signing a shirt in
his Range Rover. After they met for the second time in a
secluded car park, on January 30, 2015, he mentioned to
the underage girl that she had "felt very turned on" and
that they "might have to go in the back [of the car] next
time".

The footballer admitted he was hoping to have sex with
the child but protested that, once he had started kissing
her, he "knew it was wrong and I didn't want it to carry
on any further". Prosecutor Kate Blackwell QC told the
jury in her closing statement that "he is lying that it went
no further than a kiss" and highlighted Johnson's Google
search of the UK's age of sexual consent four days after
this last meeting.

Johnson confessed that he felt "absolutely awful" about
his actions and stressed his own "stupidity", apologising
in court to the victim and her family. But his remorseful
words were undermined by his insistence that the victim
fabricated the sexual activity to police.

Johnson, who showed no emotion in court as he was
found guilty on three of the four charges against him,
doesn't deserve a shred of sympathy for destroying his
own life. But spare a thought for the lives around him
that he has ruined.

As with any victim of child abuse, the girl Johnson
groomed - who is guaranteed the legal right to lifetime
anonymity - has been put at risk of long-term
psychological damage.

Victims can continue to suffer into adulthood with post-
traumatic stress, depression, self-harm and low self-
esteem, and have an increased chance of committing
suicide or falling into crime, prostitution or alcoholism.
The girl's father revealed during the trial that his
daughter was "crying her eyes out and saying she
wanted to kill herself” prior to telling him of the abuse
she had suffered.

NAPAC'S Kath Stipala added: "A lot of what the crime is,
is the impact on the person. The loss of trust, that sense
of violation, it stays with them for years. It harms their
ability to have relationships in the future. It's a big
psychological impact."

In addition to the crimes he committed, Johnson’s
defence barrister accused the victim of “barricading
herself with the untruths she told” in an effort to discredit
the legitimacy of her testimony - which will only have
added to the schoolgirl's torment.

The victim's statement included this harrowing line: "I’ve
been in some very dark places over that time and I
thought the trial and giving evidence, having my say,
would give me closure. But it didn’t. It put me back into
the same dark places and I felt worse than I’ve ever felt
before. This was because I still didn’t feel believed."
Johnson also subjected the mother of his one-year-old
daughter to total public humiliation. Her name won't be
mentioned in this article because she deserves a level of
victim anonymity too.

After attending the court with Johnson on day one of the
trial, the 26-year-old woman’s picture and name were
plastered all over the front pages of the British tabloids,
leading the public to question why she was standing by
her man.

During the case it was revealed that the two had actually
split but “remain friends”, though it was too late to stop
the tidal wave of sick abuse she was also receiving on
social media that led to her closing her Facebook
account.

She was brought to tears in the courtroom as it was
described how, just a couple of weeks after she had
given birth to their daughter, Johnson had secretly met
with the child victim. She was demeaned in public after
hearing how her former partner had cheated on her with
“several women” throughout their relationship. Her name
is now associated with a sex offender and there's
nothing she has done to deserve it.

Similarly, Sunderland didn't ask for the negative publicity,
but the club were forced to answer allegations after the
trial that they were aware the player may not have been
innocent of all charges.

The court heard that Sunderland chief executive Margaret
Byrne had been in possession of Johnson's police
interview copy and transcripts of his suggestive
WhatsApp messages with the child since May 4, 2015.
“It’s plain Sunderland football club knew exactly what
was going on, they choose for whatever reason, rightly
or wrongly, whether for commercial considerations or in
the knowledge they were facing relegation, they allowed
him to play. It might be in hindsight they regret that
decision,” Johnson's defence barrister, Mr Pownall QC,
said.

The Wearside club released a statement on Wednesday
insisting that they were unaware that the footballer they
purchased for £10 million in 2012 from Man City would
change his plea to guilty.

"A suggestion was made that the club knew all along that
Mr. Johnson was intending to change his plea just
before trial to enable him to continue to play football for
the club and that the club may also have been involved in
tactical discussions about the plea," Sunderland stated.
"This is utterly without foundation and is refuted in the
strongest possible terms.

"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 fact that the real victim was only mentioned once - in
the penultimate paragraph - of Sunderland's 686-word
statement does not look good.

His defence team denied that Johnson delayed his guilty
plea to ensure Sunderland didn't terminate his £60,000-
a-week contract until the last possible moment. But it
looks like that will be the last paycheck he earns for a
long time as judge Jonathan Rose warned him that he
will be going to prison.

"You must understand when you return here at the end
of March that it will be to receive a substantial prison
sentence," the judge told Johnson before granting him
bail to say goodbye to his daughter ahead of sentencing
in two-to-three weeks' time.

Having been reprimanded by the judge for joking with a
security guard earlier in the trial, there was no smiling
from Johnson as he faced up to spending between four
and 10 years behind bars.

In court, Johnson was described as “repugnant” by his
own legal counsel, “deceitful and manipulative” by the
prosecution, and “a bit of a paedophile” by a friend of the
victim giving evidence. The disgraced footballer, who
should not be allowed to play the sport again, is all of
these things and worse. He has destroyed his own
reputation forever, risked causing long-term
psychological damage to his victim and ruined so many
other lives around him.


http://m.goal.com/s/en/news/9/english-football/2016/03/02/20873102/deceitful-repugnant-paedophile-how-adam-johnson-devastated?ICID=HP_BN_5

Adam Johnson don shit 4 church ohh