Footballer Adam Johnson faces up to 10 years in jail after being found guilty of one count of sexual activity with a child.
A jury at Bradford Crown Court took around seven hours to find Johnson guilty of one count sexual activity with a 15-year- old girl – but cleared him on a second charge.
He was found guilty by majority verdict of sexual activity, involving digital penetration, with a 15-year-old girl in his
Range Rover on January 30.
The jury unanimously cleared him of a second charge of sexual activity – namely, that he allowed the girl to perform oral sex on him – on the same date.
Judge Jonathan Rose said Johnson would be sentenced later this month and a prison sentence is “almost inevitable”.
The judge told the former Manchester City star he faces up to 10 years behind bars and said he was granting him bail so ‘you can say goodbye to your daughter’.
Johnson shook his head upon hearing the guilty verdict and held a lengthy stare at the jury as the verdict was delivered.
The England international had previously pleaded guilty to one count of sexual activity with a child – namely, kissing the girl – and one count of child grooming.
Johnson groomed the teenage girl in a series of text messages after she added him on Facebook on December 31, 2014.
The 28-year-old asked the schoolgirl her age before offering to meet her to give her a signed football shirt.
The pair then met in Johnson’s Range Rover on January 17 behind a Chinese takeaway in County Durham.
Between the meetings Johnson messaged the girl saying he wanted “a little more than a kiss” and “a little bit of feeling” in exchange for the shirt.
He also repeatedly asked the girl to keep deleting her messages.
During a second meeting in the vehicle on January 30, Johnson kissed the teenager before he performed a sex act on the girl.
The victim said she became ‘uncomfortable and awkward about where it may end’ and asked the bring the meeting to an end.
Read more: Police mugshot shows footballer looking haunted hours after child sex arrest
Within hours, Johnson text: “Wasn’t bad was it? Lol.
The former Sunderland winger was arrested at his £1.8m mansion in Castle Eden, Co Durham in March and denied all charges until the start of the trial two weeks ago.
In a statement released by the schoolgirl, she said Johnson’s actions had ‘turned her life upside down’.
She said: “When Adam messaged me I was in shock and disbelief. I didn’t even believe it was Adam at first. He had to prove to me that it was him because it was that surreal.
“He asked me straight away how old I was and I said ‘15’ because I didn’t see it as a problem as I was only getting a
signed shirt. I was overwhelmed by all of this. This was my favourite player and he was texting me.
“I felt used and let down by him. It’s been the hardest year of my life and 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.
“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.”
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