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Adam Johnson Trial Verdict

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It's scary to think my stepmam was 18 and my fatha 32 when they had an affair :eek:

30 year later they're still together, happily married and with a Bairn.

3 years is all it takes.
 
Reiver said:
Some Arsenal tosser called me a paedophile as he left train on my way back from the Palace game :lol:

I'm not always the wittiest but I made mesel laugh with my response.

As he got off the train and walked up the platform I was leaning out and shouting, in my best Father Ted voice,

"Sure are we all paedophiles now Father?"

I gave it a full rant and kept if up 'til he vanished, I'm still chuckling now ......

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Out standing. Wish I'd been there to see that.
 
ftm1974 said:
if he admitted sending her messages then he kissed her, he IS admitting grooming.

Johnson himself may not have realised that - just as he may not have realised that by admitting he kissed a 15 year old, he was admitting to sexual activity with a minor.

Byrne, however, would have been very clear about what he was admitting - and that's the whole point.
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Presumably his QC would also have known but it isn't clear that Johnson knew given he was still pleading not guilty and that raises some ethical questions I won't go in to here.I don't know whether the club were made a party in proceedings but if they weren't then the whole issue of sharing that information is very complicated. If not a party then it's likely they shouldn't have access to that evidence at all although it's presumably also information belonging to him in data protection terms meaning he can share it.

The trouble with the law is that it is intended to enforce a certain moral position but it's so complicated at the interface of the various legal frameworks that it sometimes makes doing the right thing difficult, in this instance for example suspending or even summarily dismissing Johnson was the right thing but not, at that point, backed up by the law and could even have been used in his defence if the QC argued that Johnson was unable to get a fair trial because the club and media had already judged him so publicly that any jury would be unable to take an unbiased view.
In retrospect the club seem to have made an error but if they'd acted differently and their actions had been used in Johnsons defence we could have been in an altogether worse position of justice not being served when a serious crime has been committed. There are no winners here and no way of knowing what may have happened either in that meeting, unless it's got signed minutes from every participant, or if the club had acted differently.

If I was going to try and manage the situation from here on I'd be trying to organise the whole league to come up with an agreed protocol on how to behave as an organisation when serious allegations of this kind are made against an employee.
All we can hope is that the club review and update their safeguarding policies and terms of contract to try and make sure they are not put in such a difficult position again.
It shouldn't be forgotten though that whilst many people in this case may not have acted entirely correctly or appropriately that only one man is guilty of a sexual offence and, ultimately, only he is responsible for the damage he has done.
 
Fetch Fletch said:
It is like :lol:

Wouldn't exactly be upset to see Mrs Inept gone though.
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No, she should have gone on other grounds, long ago. I fully understand all of the various opinions on here, and don't pretend to have all of the answers, but I would hope people on here don't just think " this is a great opportunity to get Byrne" and are using a young kid's misery to further their cause. That would be reprehensible.
 
Papers will stretch it out as long as they can as muck sells.
A certain percentage of opposing supporters will sing about it although in the passing of time it will fade away.
I'm not gonna be outraged by any of this as I've heard us abuse Boro supporters. It's not clever but I know blokes who are really intelligent and switched on who seem to lose a few brain cells when they attend matches. Some might say I'm one of them.
 
Sick of people having a go at Margaret Byrne.

Adam Johnson was a valuable employee to this football club. Not playing him would surely have relegated us and cost the club £100m, making the current annual at the club look minuscule in comparison to what would happen if relegation occured. It was an unethical decision to play Johnson but businesses often have to make unethical decisions to thrive! Margaret Byrne did what she did to save dozens of jobs.
 
This thread could be condensed into about 5pages.
Over 300 pages of mainly guess work and speculation, the truth is nobody knows what was said in Johnson's meeting with Byrne, so no one really knows what the club knew.
Time to move on and leave this sorry affair to take its own course.
 
bucksoutcast said:
That is why I think it is a "loaded" question.

In the meeting he was not admitting his guilt, I agree that this could well be because at the time of the correspondence he did not realise in his mind that what he was doing was "grooming" (although I am sure there must have been a nagging doubt, that what he was doing was not proper).

Byrne might have realised during the meeting that it could well be viewed as grooming, but that is for the courts to decide, she was not expected to act as judge and jury (and I am not a MB fan).
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What it is, is complete nonsense.

The QC didn't claim that Johnson admitted that he was guilty of grooming at the meeting with Byrne. The Echo are asking a question that doesn't even need answering. It's absolutely ridiculous.
 
Anthony From Blue said:
Sick of people having a go at Margaret Byrne.

Adam Johnson was a valuable employee to this football club. Not playing him would surely have relegated us and cost the club £100m, making the current annual at the club look minuscule in comparison to what would happen if relegation occured. It was an unethical decision to play Johnson but businesses often have to make unethical decisions to thrive! Margaret Byrne did what she did to save dozens of jobs.
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While I get what you're saying. In hindsight we would have stayed up without him as he barely appeared, don't think he started once.
 
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Anthony From Blue said:
Sick of people having a go at Margaret Byrne.

Adam Johnson was a valuable employee to this football club. Not playing him would surely have relegated us and cost the club £100m, making the current annual at the club look minuscule in comparison to what would happen if relegation occured. It was an unethical decision to play Johnson but businesses often have to make unethical decisions to thrive! Margaret Byrne did what she did to save dozens of jobs.
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real jobs or head jobs?
 
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