Rober33
Winger
How many giant leaps are you willing to take from a couple of craftily worded statements?
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Adam Johnson Trial Verdict
- Thread starter Geronimo
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How many giant leaps are you willing to take from a couple of craftily worded statements?
f***ing hell man
Say they did know, and Johnson said he was going to deny everything, how could they not let him play. They weren't in a position to say, No, Johnson we think you are guilty. If he had been found not guilty, Sunderland would of been took to the cleaners. The club were in a no win situation.
billyboy
Winger
Same here. I cheered him as part of the team all that time. We all knew the allegations, but that's all they were until the trial. Now that the story has unfolded and the guilty verdict has been passed, I am only upset with Johnson and not the club for him misleading us and profiting financially from it. He is the guilty party here which the media seem to be ignoring. I didn't see or hear anyone complaining about him playing before the trial so what's changed.
Safeguarding
T
theinediblebulk
Guest
Sleep deprivation man
Aye, just read your quote about your young un. Hope both you and him manage to drop off soon and have a good nights kip.
Purrfect South
Heaven Branch
That's what he claimed. Even in the Sex Act laws it allows for an innocent kiss with a minor. He was spinning them a line.
Exactly. Where were all these people beating the door down to complain to the club then? Bunch of hypocrites if you ask me.
Safeguarding what?
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The way people have extracted their own meanings from court statements is quite bizarre.How many giant leaps are you willing to take from a couple of craftily worded statements?
The QC saying that Byrne had the transcript in her possession has somehow been corrupted in to her reading all the messages.
Johnson admitting kissing the girl has been twisted into him admitting guilt.
Just two examples of bullshit.
Maximus
Striker
So fuck all to do with MB having anything to do with AJ's arrest then?
Read the threads properly.
billyboy
Winger
I've seen that term bandied about a lot in this post. What exactly does it entail?
peil
Striker
Nope, Ayr then Tarbolton (Same as James Allan) then Clydebank (like no-one with any sense)
samaistonsrightfoot
Striker
I know. I wasn't meaning you had said she would be sacked, although now I've read it back I can see why you thought that. It was more just my opinion on her going or staying
Purrfect South
Heaven Branch
In the context of AJ and the club, it meant keeping him away from bairns. There's a photo in a paper today, showing him signing an autograph after these conditions were put in place, to highlight that we didn't do it properly.
box2box
Striker
So fuck all to do with MB having anything to do with AJ's arrest then?
Exactly, its a pathetic piece of journalism
FanchesterCity
Central Defender
Yep... Imagine you're the club and Johnson says 'she was a bit of a fan and was always around waiting for me, I decided to help her out, sign a couple of shirts for her, and I know I shouldn't have but I gave her a kiss - now I'm horrified to discover she was underage - so I'm going to defend the charge/s' - when presented like that, you might have sympathy - and the club probably did have such sympathy. I don't believe he admitted to a passionate kiss, nor to grooming at that time. So that's going to be his first admission to the club and his claim 'they knew everything'. Clearly they didn't know EVERYTHING at that point. There's no way he's told them about the intimate nature of the conversations etc. It's not clear if he admitted to knowing she was under 16 before the kiss, or if he merely admitted to knowing she was under 16 in light of the allegations (big difference).
Then along comes his father and barrister to meet with the club - which one can only assume was in relation to employment matters, obtaining corroborating evidence from the club, and possibly to discuss PR. We're told it was the barrister's first meeting with Johnson, so I doubt they start laying out tonnes of evidence to SAFC! It's going to be more of a show of strength from Johnson's side and trying to keep his employer onside - not arm them with evidence to sack him!
It doesn't mean he has to be kept away from them, just that he should be supervised in their presence. A photo won't reveal who else was around.
billyboy
Winger
Right I thought that's what it might mean. However, was he, and the rest of the squad told not to do this, as in theory any player could abuse their position as footballing heroes to kids. Maybe we should ban all player contact with the general public and keep the players in special secure accommodation excepting training periods and game time. It just all seems so bizarre.
johnny
Subs Bench
I would hope he was told not to interact with fans after the alleged first meeting between club/ police. See no reason why other players should be told to stop signing autographs etc.
Must be bored
Central Defender
The amount of times this thread ends up misquoting, misrepresenting, correcting, arguing about the same issues of agreed fact is ridiculous. If any of the below is incorrect then please say but from what I've seen this is the agreed timeline and disclosures that prosecution/defence/SAFC all agree on unless otherwise stated.
2nd March 15
- Johnson arrested
- Police visit club, discuss nature of allegations, that he'd messaged and had sexual contact with the girl and safeguarding issues for the club. Police had not yet interviewed Johnson. This was confirmed by the leading office both in court and in the BBC interview
- SAFC suspend Johnson
18th March 15
- Johnson suspension lifted following meetings with him, legal team, PFA.
23rd April 15
- Johnson charged with 4 offences.
- SAFC did not take any action re: suspension. We had two games between this date and the meeting on 4th May, Johnson was not in the squad in the game following being charged and made a late sub appeared in the second game
4th May 15
- Meeting between club, Johnson and legal team/QC. Not the police.
- In court, AJ/QC say that Johnson admitted kissing girl in this meeting (this is not the same as admitting guilt to any of the charges against him) and provided police interview and What's App messages to MB (this is not the same as saying she read them)
- Club statement says MB attended part of this meeting. Club received documents which were "Immediately" handed to QC (not clear this was during meeting or at a different time) and club were not in position to determine guilt. They don't address issues of AJ admitting to kissing or refer to whether they reviewed any of the messages they are meant to have been provided with.
Throughout this whole time Johnson maintained that he was pleading not guilty.
Sorry for repeating what should already be known but the amount of circular arguments about "police confirmed SAFC knew he was guilty", "police told SAFC he was guilty", "SAFC should never have unsuspended him" or "Johnson admitted he was guilty" is stupid.
For the little it's worth, my opinion is that the club acted correctly 2nd March.
On 18th March, the were obliged to relax his suspension given he wasn't charged and has a right to train/retain fitness so they acted correctly again. They could have left him out of 1st team but until charged I think they again acted correctly.
On 23rd April they took no action. There's an argument that at this point they could have suspended/removed him from 1st team action as this meant the CPS believe they have sufficient evidence for a conviction so the club should be looking to protect itself from any fallout. With hindsight it's easy to say but even at the time many people were uneasy about him not being suspended following the charges.
The meeting on 4th May is where the questions lie and whilst not necessarily conflicting with each other, the implied nature of what happened from the statements of Johnson/QC and SAFC did not sit well together. I'm inclined to give SAFC the benefit of the doubt about how much they knew. I'd prefer to believe they were were naïve/poorly advised/lacking in judgement rather than anything more sinister but it's not a great reflection on them either way.
I'm leaving it at that
2nd March 15
- Johnson arrested
- Police visit club, discuss nature of allegations, that he'd messaged and had sexual contact with the girl and safeguarding issues for the club. Police had not yet interviewed Johnson. This was confirmed by the leading office both in court and in the BBC interview
- SAFC suspend Johnson
18th March 15
- Johnson suspension lifted following meetings with him, legal team, PFA.
23rd April 15
- Johnson charged with 4 offences.
- SAFC did not take any action re: suspension. We had two games between this date and the meeting on 4th May, Johnson was not in the squad in the game following being charged and made a late sub appeared in the second game
4th May 15
- Meeting between club, Johnson and legal team/QC. Not the police.
- In court, AJ/QC say that Johnson admitted kissing girl in this meeting (this is not the same as admitting guilt to any of the charges against him) and provided police interview and What's App messages to MB (this is not the same as saying she read them)
- Club statement says MB attended part of this meeting. Club received documents which were "Immediately" handed to QC (not clear this was during meeting or at a different time) and club were not in position to determine guilt. They don't address issues of AJ admitting to kissing or refer to whether they reviewed any of the messages they are meant to have been provided with.
Throughout this whole time Johnson maintained that he was pleading not guilty.
Sorry for repeating what should already be known but the amount of circular arguments about "police confirmed SAFC knew he was guilty", "police told SAFC he was guilty", "SAFC should never have unsuspended him" or "Johnson admitted he was guilty" is stupid.
For the little it's worth, my opinion is that the club acted correctly 2nd March.
On 18th March, the were obliged to relax his suspension given he wasn't charged and has a right to train/retain fitness so they acted correctly again. They could have left him out of 1st team but until charged I think they again acted correctly.
On 23rd April they took no action. There's an argument that at this point they could have suspended/removed him from 1st team action as this meant the CPS believe they have sufficient evidence for a conviction so the club should be looking to protect itself from any fallout. With hindsight it's easy to say but even at the time many people were uneasy about him not being suspended following the charges.
The meeting on 4th May is where the questions lie and whilst not necessarily conflicting with each other, the implied nature of what happened from the statements of Johnson/QC and SAFC did not sit well together. I'm inclined to give SAFC the benefit of the doubt about how much they knew. I'd prefer to believe they were were naïve/poorly advised/lacking in judgement rather than anything more sinister but it's not a great reflection on them either way.
I'm leaving it at that
FanchesterCity
Central Defender
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 does not 'allow' for this.
Any touching of any sort - even a foot on a foot is an offence with a minor if it's sexual.
Now, a peck on the cheek isn't typically sexual, a peck on the lips might be passed off as accidental, or not sexual but you're pushing your luck. A simple 'kiss' (without tongues) lips to lips is considered sexual in most circumstances.
I think Johnson's 'claim' was more along the lines of him not realising that a kiss was considered to be a sexual offence. Although it's against the law, I would have no difficulty in accepting that some people might not realise it's a sexual offence.
I'm pretty sure that was Johnson's opening gambit. He's kissed a girl believing her to be older, then learned she's younger, so he's going to plead not guilty on the ground he reasonably believed her to be older (which we now know was never the case) and / or that he'd not realised kissing as a sexual offence (believable, but because of strict liability is no defence in law).
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