ADAM JOHNSON HAS been sentenced to 6 years in prison
The 28-year-old was found guilty of sexual activity with a child earlier this month and had faced the prospect of a ten-year sentence.
“All of this is entirely your own responsibility and fault”, Judge Jonathan Rose told Johnson, a former England international.
Johnson, who was playing with Sunderland at the time of his arrest last year, pleaded guilty to grooming and one count of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl on the first day of trial having previously denied the charges.
Josh Halliday / Twitter
Josh Halliday / Twitter / Twitter
Some of Johnson’s testimonies were blatantly dismissed.
During the trial, the winger claimed that an internet search he conducted on his mobile phone for ‘age of consent’ was regarding a conversation he had with Sunderland team-mates about a television show.
The judge said that Johnson merely wanted to know when it would be legal ‘to engage in sexual intercourse’ with the minor, who he had already carried out a sex act with behind a Chinese takeaway in January 2015.
The judge was particularly damning in his assessment of Johnson’s decision to change his plea at the last minute.
By doing so, the judge said, Johnson’s victim had endured ‘a year of abuse’.
Heart NE News / Twitter
Heart NE News / Twitter / Twitter
Prosecutor Kate Blackwell read out a victim impact statement from the victim, who is now sixteen.
In it, she revealed that she continues to be bullied at school and had ‘disturbing threats of violence made towards her’. She also said that she had been approached in public by a stranger who asked her ‘intrusive questions’.
The judge told Johnson prior to handing down the sentence that his victim had endured ‘severe psychological harm’.
Johnson, who earned £60,000 per week at Sunderland, has also been ordered to pay £50,000 of the prosecution’s costs.
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