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Adam Johnson Trial Verdict

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What have I said that is incorrect? And why am I not entitled to an opinion, what makes me different to you having an opinion? I could say why is your opinion relevant but I'd never dream of it. I have also never made it personal.

Courts deal with a lot more than criminal cases. In effect I have been the prosecution represented by a barrister. It has been my responsibility to prepare, collect and write evidence, to be in case conferences with the barristers, pre-hearing representing my party, where they have stated how they will use the evidence they have to prove the case, been in pre-trial hearings and sat through 10 day final hearings, all the time negotiating with the barrister representing my party.
Now, if you have more experience than that of the Court and judicial process I will happily bow to your knowledge.

Here's one 'You have no idea and saying that if your a witness and straight in and straight out shows that.' - You're wrong to suggest I'm wrong. Crown court... Magistrates court... The witness will sit outside the trial, will be called in by a member of the court staff, will give their evidence, and will then leave the trial. The reason why they don't have witnesses sat in trials is because if all your witnesses hear what one another have to say then it could bias the trial.

Courts do deal with a lot more than criminal cases, the issue is you are talking here about a criminal case. I have knowledge on criminal trials, you wouldn't ever hear me talking authoritatively about other court proceedings, e.g. family courts, because I have no experience of them. If you have experience of other lines of court work, then that's fine, and I agree it makes you more informed about things than most on here, but equally a lot of what you said earlier was untrue. For example, you spoke about barristers intentionally misleading in meetings you'd been in iirc. Now that might be true in whatever you do, but to surmise from that that in a criminal court case a barrister is going to intentionally mislead the court about information discussed at meetings in which they were present is simply incorrect, it doesn't really happen and it's stretching things to think a QC would do it in such a high profile case.

From what you're saying your line of court work isn't criminal, but in which case saying 'in effect I have been the prosecution' doesn't make sense - in what context do you have a prosecution outside of a criminal trial?

I worked part time in a law firm for three years. In crown court cases my job was basically to sit behind the barrister for the duration of the trial, make sure they had papers when they needed them, make notes of what was said, sit in on meetings with clients and note who said what etc. It wasn't high responsibility by any stretch of the imagination because as you can guess it was primarily just making notes but it meant I was present throughout proceedings and during all the meetings. So although I wouldn't pretend to have anywhere near the knowledge of a lawyer, or the like, I do have a more than adequate understanding of criminal trails and what goes on in them.

The issue I have with the posts you made in this thread is that you were speaking quite authoritatively about how you understood court process and the like. You then used your experience in what seem clearly not to be criminal cases, and certainly not crown court criminal cases, to try and construct arguments which you so happened to be wrong on. I've intentionally avoided bringing up my experience in work because to a large extent it is meaningless, either I am right about something or I am wrong, so saying 'and what I say is definitely true because XYZ I know the court system so well etc.' adds nothing. You tried to beef your posts up by saying what experience you had when it doesn't really seem like it would be relevant to a case like this. That's what I took exception to, it wasn't meant to be personal.
 

To which I replied, and you said 'so?'...So I gave you the scenario that follows the implication.
You're reply didn't have any relevance to the question I asked. Which was would anyone pick Johnson after reading his texts.
No idea why you responded asking about the defence team
 
If this was our blessed cousins up the road in exactly the same situation you would be all over this forum demanding answers and in agreement with me and others of the same opinion on here

I certainly would and I'd be lapping it up ....... but in reality that's just the kind of inane banter you find on football forums.

At least I have the honesty to admit it and not dress it up as the principled stance some of the attention seekers on here claim it to be.
 
Because otherwise all the stuff that happened today with the press happens. It's really not that complicated. If they didn't see it it's very easy for them to portray themselves as yet another wronged party by a deceitful convicted sex offender who is just trying to cover himself. That's a very easy get out clause to point to if you have it. The fact that the club haven't done that-very obvious-thing to clear their name suggests in this instance that it's not about any lack of transparency on AJ's part
Or maybe they'd think the average joe would be able to work out that it's bollocks.
 
What experience do you have, out of curiosity?

'If there was a sniff that Johnson was guilty of the allegations, he'd have been sacked there and then, which is in fact exactly what happened when he put a guilty plea in' - What do you base this on? It has been alleged in court that Johnson told SAFC he kissed her. It has been alleged in court SAFC were given all the whatsapp messages. This is all under oath. SAFC have issued a reply, they haven't responded to him kissing her at all, re. the whatsapps all they've said is they received 'some documents'.

You say 'they didn't have one scrap of evidence' but if this is true then all we're asking is for them to come out and say that! Say they didn't have the whatsapp messages, say he didn't admit to them he'd kissed her! They have had that put to them and have CHOSEN NOT TO RESPOND to those specific allegations. That's why people are frustrated by the club's response, because they have circumvented what the answers need to be about. If they denied ever having court papers (or the whatsapp messages) or whatever I think everyone here would believe them over AJ... The issue is they aren't denying what the crux of the problem is.

Sometimes you are given stuff that you don't want to delve into for a variety of reasons. Anything provided at that stage could have been retracted later, as per AJ's not guilty plea. I've been handed files in the past that i have refused to look at for business and integrity reasons. It happens, and as a smart lawyer, she probably did the right thing, passing them straight on.
 
Byrne said she didn't know he was pleading guilty, and that the documents handed to her were handed straight over to the brief, who was now representing AJ. I may now be out of synch, but can't be arsed to go back over the whole thread.;)
'Some documents were received relating to the case, which were immediately sent to Mr. Pownall for his attention'

It doesn't say she didn't read them, and if she didn't that's a key point to omit.
 
As i've said. The club weren't on trial, so why on earth did this all get dragged up anyway?

It's their own fault. They weren't on trial aye, but by taking the action they have done in light of what has been said they've raised a lot of issues around their decision making and interpretation of civic and legal responsibility.
 
Here's one 'You have no idea and saying that if your a witness and straight in and straight out shows that.' - You're wrong to suggest I'm wrong. Crown court... Magistrates court... The witness will sit outside the trial, will be called in by a member of the court staff, will give their evidence, and will then leave the trial. The reason why they don't have witnesses sat in trials is because if all your witnesses hear what one another have to say then it could bias the trial.

Courts do deal with a lot more than criminal cases, the issue is you are talking here about a criminal case. I have knowledge on criminal trials, you wouldn't ever hear me talking authoritatively about other court proceedings, e.g. family courts, because I have no experience of them. If you have experience of other lines of court work, then that's fine, and I agree it makes you more informed about things than most on here, but equally a lot of what you said earlier was untrue. For example, you spoke about barristers intentionally misleading in meetings you'd been in iirc. Now that might be true in whatever you do, but to surmise from that that in a criminal court case a barrister is going to intentionally mislead the court about information discussed at meetings in which they were present is simply incorrect, it doesn't really happen and it's stretching things to think a QC would do it in such a high profile case.

From what you're saying your line of court work isn't criminal, but in which case saying 'in effect I have been the prosecution' doesn't make sense - in what context do you have a prosecution outside of a criminal trial?

I worked part time in a law firm for three years. In crown court cases my job was basically to sit behind the barrister for the duration of the trial, make sure they had papers when they needed them, make notes of what was said, sit in on meetings with clients and note who said what etc. It wasn't high responsibility by any stretch of the imagination because as you can guess it was primarily just making notes but it meant I was present throughout proceedings and during all the meetings. So although I wouldn't pretend to have anywhere near the knowledge of a lawyer, or the like, I do have a more than adequate understanding of criminal trails and what goes on in them.

The issue I have with the posts you made in this thread is that you were speaking quite authoritatively about how you understood court process and the like. You then used your experience in what seem clearly not to be criminal cases, and certainly not crown court criminal cases, to try and construct arguments which you so happened to be wrong on. I've intentionally avoided bringing up my experience in work because to a large extent it is meaningless, either I am right about something or I am wrong, so saying 'and what I say is definitely true because XYZ I know the court system so well etc.' adds nothing. You tried to beef your posts up by saying what experience you had when it doesn't really seem like it would be relevant to a case like this. That's what I took exception to, it wasn't meant to be personal.

That's nice ........ as long as you accept you're totally wasting your time.
 
Very little to gain financially from taking him to court as his contract was almost over anyway.

The best thing is to probably take the reputation hit caused by all of the sensationalism surrounding the case and the clubs part in it and move on as quickly as possible. Dragging this out is of no benefit to anyone connected to the club in any way.

What about the monies paid out to him whilst he knew he was guilty? Or the defamation of the clubs image by his direct part in it all? Got to be a few million in both of those.
 
I certainly would and I'd be lapping it up ....... but in reality that's just the kind of inane banter you find on football forums.

At least I have the honesty to admit it and not dress it up as the principled stance some of the attention seekers on here claim it to be.

If your fully admitting to taking a different view on the matter if another club was involved how can you expect your views to be taken seriously on the subject??
 
Sometimes you are given stuff that you don't want to delve into for a variety of reasons. Anything provided at that stage could have been retracted later, as per AJ's not guilty plea. I've been handed files in the past that i have refused to look at for business and integrity reasons. It happens, and as a smart lawyer, she probably did the right thing, passing them straight on.

So I don't disagree with that, the issue is AJ says she did see them. And she hasn't refuted that (yet).

Quite why the files would ever end up in her possession unless she was going to read them is still beyond me.
 
Here's one 'You have no idea and saying that if your a witness and straight in and straight out shows that.' - You're wrong to suggest I'm wrong. Crown court... Magistrates court... The witness will sit outside the trial, will be called in by a member of the court staff, will give their evidence, and will then leave the trial. The reason why they don't have witnesses sat in trials is because if all your witnesses hear what one another have to say then it could bias the trial.

Courts do deal with a lot more than criminal cases, the issue is you are talking here about a criminal case. I have knowledge on criminal trials, you wouldn't ever hear me talking authoritatively about other court proceedings, e.g. family courts, because I have no experience of them. If you have experience of other lines of court work, then that's fine, and I agree it makes you more informed about things than most on here, but equally a lot of what you said earlier was untrue. For example, you spoke about barristers intentionally misleading in meetings you'd been in iirc. Now that might be true in whatever you do, but to surmise from that that in a criminal court case a barrister is going to intentionally mislead the court about information discussed at meetings in which they were present is simply incorrect, it doesn't really happen and it's stretching things to think a QC would do it in such a high profile case.

From what you're saying your line of court work isn't criminal, but in which case saying 'in effect I have been the prosecution' doesn't make sense - in what context do you have a prosecution outside of a criminal trial?

I worked part time in a law firm for three years. In crown court cases my job was basically to sit behind the barrister for the duration of the trial, make sure they had papers when they needed them, make notes of what was said, sit in on meetings with clients and note who said what etc. It wasn't high responsibility by any stretch of the imagination because as you can guess it was primarily just making notes but it meant I was present throughout proceedings and during all the meetings. So although I wouldn't pretend to have anywhere near the knowledge of a lawyer, or the like, I do have a more than adequate understanding of criminal trails and what goes on in them.

The issue I have with the posts you made in this thread is that you were speaking quite authoritatively about how you understood court process and the like. You then used your experience in what seem clearly not to be criminal cases, and certainly not crown court criminal cases, to try and construct arguments which you so happened to be wrong on. I've intentionally avoided bringing up my experience in work because to a large extent it is meaningless, either I am right about something or I am wrong, so saying 'and what I say is definitely true because XYZ I know the court system so well etc.' adds nothing. You tried to beef your posts up by saying what experience you had when it doesn't really seem like it would be relevant to a case like this. That's what I took exception to, it wasn't meant to be personal.

The main point is what she said is absolutely true and you've already agreed with it earlier in this thread, I'm sure.

A barrister may not lie for a defendant but they can represent the truth in a way that suits their argument and may not clearly represent what really happened at all. That's their job.
 
It's their own fault. They weren't on trial aye, but by taking the action they have done in light of what has been said they've raised a lot of issues around their decision making and interpretation of civic and legal responsibility.

Obviously now, aye. But not sure why the club were even mentioned in court, especially as they weren't involved in the trial.
 
Very little to gain financially from taking him to court as his contract was almost over anyway.

The best thing is to probably take the reputation hit caused by all of the sensationalism surrounding the case and the clubs part in it and move on as quickly as possible. Dragging this out is of no benefit to anyone connected to the club in any way.

If Byrne didn't see the transcripts and AJ didn't admit to her he kissed her then he's surely defamed her. He's worth millions so it's not like there's not money to recover.
 
If your fully admitting to taking a different view on the matter if another club was involved how can you expect your views to be taken seriously on the subject??

What are my views, I don't think you can answer that question ....... seriously.

I'm certainly not taking a different view, I'm saying I'd be taking the piss ..... but my viewpoint would be identical.
 
Or maybe they'd think the average joe would be able to work out that it's bollocks.

Yeah, that's how these things tend to work sure. Big organisations aren't remotely litigious when it comes to protecting their reputation. They just trust in the wisdom of the average Joe. I'm sure they're not remotely bothered by all this stuff right now.

I'm also sure that if it were a Newcastle player we were talking about here you'd have exactly the same sort of attitude in regards to what's being reported
 
What about the monies paid out to him whilst he knew he was guilty? Or the defamation of the clubs image by his direct part in it all? Got to be a few million in both of those.

We played him during that time so probably wouldn't get anything but either way it's probably far more damaging to drag this on for even longer.
 
"Some documents were received relating to the case, which were immediately sent to Mr. Pownall for his attention. However, the club was not in a position to make any judgment on the outcome of the case nor on Mr. Johnson’s decision to defend all the allegations. "

A completely reasonable interpretation of that is: Johnson admitted kissing the girl, but not the three other offences. The club saw some transcripts confirming the kissing allegation. The club was therefore not able to determine whether he would be found guilty of all four offences or form an opinion on his decision to plead not guilty to three of the four offences. And therefore the club DID know he'd committed a sexual act with a child but still played him in the team.

People are having a go at those being critical for supposedly trying to read something into the statement. But if that's the case why did the club tiptoe so carefully around it and not actually say, "We did not see anything in the documents which indicated Johnson had committed an offence or hear anything from Johnson in which he admitted committing an offence?" It is not in the least unreasonable to look at the statement and see it as an act of arse-covering by an organisation which knows it has royally fucked up.
 
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