• The forums will be unavailable for a few hours on Saturday 6th June, when they do return they will initially be in a degraded state with some features missing, but normal posting/reading will be possible. The main website will not be affected by these updates.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.
    Some other features of the forum are also currently disabled.

Adam Johnson Trial Verdict

Status
Not open for further replies.

sidneyeric said:
He shouldn't say that he will only accept "12- nil" majority if he wont, making jokes in the case of this trial means he's a nob aswel.
Click to expand...

Not really, he's telling the truth at that point in time. He can wait as long as he likes to lessen it to 10-2 (although in practice he can't wait forever).
What he is doing is making it clear that they should make every effort to reach a unanimous verdict, and that he will not accept anything less. Only when the judge is happy that they've made every effort and can do no more will he consider a 10-2 majority.

Of course, if the jury know all along that he'll settle for 10-2, then it might influence their decision making but if they act as the judge requests, then the 10-2 is a fall back, not the first option.
 
Wayne The Punk said:
I thought that the judge said it had to be 12-0, in all honesty I think the bloke is a f***ing idiot, but when it comes down to it, it seems to be his word against hers. I understand he has appealed, I suspect this is going to get really messy for her and her family
Click to expand...
This is what I have said, I have looked at what info is available to me and I haven't seen enough to send someone to jail for 4+ years.
 
JonMc said:
Grooming. Sexual contact. Lure of alcohol (even though she refused). Vulnerable schoolgirl hanging out with older man....

Many of the charges are the same. Let's see what the summing up has to say.
Click to expand...
Ha ha listen to yourself. Honestly
 
janey said:
Was talking to me mam about this, she said when she was younger she went to the paper shop to get me granda his Sunday papers as a surprise. She bought a Sunday Sun and unbeknowing a News Of The World, he wasn't happy and made her take it back. Despite me nana saying can you just not keep it he said he refused to give it house room. And that was a canny few years ago.
Click to expand...
What a remarkably perceptive man.
 
prehab26 said:
Good peice by David Conn - The Guardian

You must be logged on to see external links



You must be logged on to see external links
football club and the once-distinguished Professional Footballers Association were not called as witnesses in the trial of Adam Johnson’s sordid crimes, but it would have been instructive to see their officials engage with the legal duty to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So far they are falling short in the middle part of that responsibility, with their weaselly, pathetic responses to glaring questions about why Johnson was allowed to turn out, wearing Sunderland’s famous red and white striped shirt, in the globally broadcast Premier League, for 11 months after he was charged.

You must be logged on to see external links
weaves a claimed justification while avoiding the assertion landed on the club’s chief executive, Margaret Byrne, by Johnson’s barrister, Orlando Pownall QC. He said in court, apparently seeking to portray Johnson in some kind of better light, that on 4 May last year, Byrne saw the police interviews which showed Johnson admitted he had exchanged hundreds of messages with (ie groomed) and kissed the 15-year-old supporter and customer of Byrne’s club.

In the focus which has rightly turned on Sunderland, the nasty effects of Johnson’s legal case could be lost: Pownall’s argument that Byrne knew Johnson admitted it applies to his client too. Yet presumably with legal advice including from Pownall, Johnson decided to put his schoolgirl victim through a nightmare, by playing on for his £60,000 a week and not pleading guilty until the doors of court. how “horrendous” Johnson’s public denials had been for her, because “I’ve had to face so much abuse after he claimed his innocence”.

The impression is that Johnson’s lawyers calculated the victim might crack and withdraw her allegations as the ordeal of giving public evidence grew closer and Johnson pleaded guilty only when she stayed strong enough. Neither Pownall nor Paul Morris of Burton Copeland, Johnson’s solicitor, responded to the Guardian’s questions about their conduct of Johnson’s case.

Having been exposed for the 4 May meeting, Sunderland have relied for justification on that same calculating strategy, that Johnson was not pleading guilty. On what Byrne knew, there is some unattractively evasive wording: the meeting with Pownall, Johnson and Johnson’s father was “introductory”; Byrne was present “during part” of it; “some documents were received which were immediately sent to Mr Pownall for his attention” – even though Pownall was there.



Sunderland’s statement avoids the question of what Margaret Byrne, the club’s chief executive, knew. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA
The statement avoids the question of what Byrne knew, and she has failed to answer it herself. Instead, the manager Sam Allardyce was sent out to do a standard pre-match press conference in which the unfortunate Louise Wanless, the club’s media and communications manager, had to .


Last season, with Johnson playing, they finished three points above relegation. Now, at serious risk of going down this time, the goal Johnson scored in the 6 February 2-2 draw with Liverpool, most likely the last game he will play as a professional footballer, could preserve Sunderland their guaranteed £100m from next season’s Premier League TV rights. Survival will presumably justify Byrne’s own salary, which was £663,196 in 2013-14, and by then, Sunderland are surely figuring, they will have outlasted all these inconvenient questions.

:eek::eek::eek::eek:
Click to expand...

In case David Conn is accused of an anti SAFC agenda, he was one of the people who defended Sunderland fans most strongly over the Central Station incident and pushed for answers from the authorities when few other media people would touch it or could be bothered.
 
It's a difficult one for me. Until he was convicted in court or admitted guilt surely they couldn't take action and sack him, they could have suspended him with pay I think, if they thought he was a risk to customers or employees - thats probably what they should have done, but i understand that if they put a safeguarding plan in place to keep people safe then he could continue to be employed. I think morally we should have done the suspension and the club have found a get out clause - but if he hadn't been guilty then that would have been a bad shout. Understandably sexual offences and offences against children are highly emotional and political issues so the club was never going to do well out of this. The fact is the bloke used his status as a well paid Sunderland player to abuse a child. Ethically i think the guy should have stayed under suspension but if then found not guilty we still look daft and out of order and unsupportive of our staff. Johnson has been so bang out of order at every level here if you look at the impact of this behaviour from victim and victim's family, to the impact on his family, team mates, SAFC 's name and football in general. Look at the pressure situation he chose to put those kids into in court and even the pressure he put Byrne under as chief exec. He could have admitted guilt and worked, i work in criminal justice, with vulnerable young people and i know that doesn't happen. But the police and everyone throwing shit at the club ? I'm not so sure - there is only one devious, selfish manipulative person who should be attacked here for me. He's about to have a tough few years and rightly so.
 
redandwhiterob said:
So they wern't all offered in evidence?

In his summing up the judge mentioned 8 times Johnson has proved to be telling fibs about this case. That is proved in court. It's 100% clear as day Johnson's lies are a lot more damming than hers. Our of interest do you belive Johnson when he said his reasons for Googling the age of consent and reasons for taking the photos of his knob?
Click to expand...

Strictly speaking, an awful lot wasn't proven or disproven, the jury simply reached a verdict that given the evidence on both sides, they believed beyond all reasonable doubt that one charge was accurate:

2 charges pleaded guilty
1 charge the jury found guilty
1 charge the jury found not guilty

Equally, 'not guilty' doesn't mean proven innocent. It means he's innocent by default (as should be the case for everybody), and that the evidence was not enough to convince them of guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

We will never know the truth behind his Google search, or the photographs, nor will we even know the truth about his pubic hair.
 
sidneyeric said:
We are talking about the 2 he pleaded not guilty to ffs are you really that f***ing thick ? oh you're a mag, sorry.
Click to expand...

He was found guilty of one and not the other. Im sure the jury were privvy to alot more information than you are. Also even if it was a battle of who do you believe, id choose the fucker that didnt change there stance and plea as the one id trust...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top