Footballer Adam Johnson has been jailed for six years for grooming and
sexual activity with a girl aged 15.
Sentencing the ex-Sunderland player, Judge Jonathan Rose told him he had
abused a position of trust and caused his victim "severe psychological
harm".
It can now be reported police found extreme pornography involving animals
on Johnson's laptop.
The matter is not being taken any further, Bradford Crown Court heard.
The sexual activity with the girl happened in the footballer's Range
Rover in January 2015 after he had groomed her using social media apps.
Judge Rose told the footballer, who played 12 times for England , there
had been "an abuse of trust - you are trusted by young fans to behave properly".
He said: "She had only just turned 15 when you began grooming her,
because, as you were to admit, you found her sexually attractive."
The judge told Johnson the offences happened "at a time when you
were engaged in frequent sexual intercourse with multiple partners".
At the start of his trial last month, Johnson had admitted grooming the
girl and one charge of sexual activity, relating to kissing her. He was found
guilty of sexual touching and cleared of one charge relating to another sexual
act.
Judge Rose said Johnson had had "every opportunity" to enter
guilty pleas to the charges he finally admitted. He ordered the footballer to
pay £50,000 of the prosecution's £67,132 costs.
During the three-week trial the jury heard the former winger met the girl
after agreeing to sign football shirts for her.
He admitted kissing the teenager but told the jury an encounter in his
Range Rover "went no further".
The girl told the court he had "put his hands down her pants"
and she performed a sex act on him.
The jury cleared Johnson over the sex act claim but convicted him by a
10-2 majority on the sexual touching charge.
Restrictions have now been lifted that prevented it being reported that,
when Johnson was arrested, police found medicines in a safe indicating he may
have been suffering from sexually transmitted infections.
In a victim impact statement read to court, the girl said she had been
forced to endure thousands of malicious and slanderous remarks on social media
and had been approached by a stranger asking about her relationship with the
footballer.
She felt at risk going out and her schoolwork had suffered
"massively", the court was told.
"I have entered many dark places over this 12-month period,"
she said.
"Ultimately, it was like I was being taunted as if to say he could
do what he wants and get away with it."
In another statement to the court, her mother said there "had been
no winners" and defended the decision to report the matter to police in
order to "protect other vulnerable children".
She stressed the family had never sought financial gain.
Earlier, Dr Philip Hopley, a consultant psychiatrist giving evidence for
the defence, told the court: "This is a man who, at the age of 28, is
socially and psychologically immature."
The doctor said he found no evidence in Johnson of an attraction to pre-pubescent
children or "sexual perversion".
Speaking after Johnson was sentenced, Det Insp Aelfwynn Sampson, of
Durham Police, said: "Fame, celebrity and a position of power does not
give you the right to break the law in pursuit of whatever you desire.
"This girl should have been safe but she was used by the public
figure she looked up to most."
Jon Brown, from children's charity the NSPCC, questioned whether the
Football Association's "really comprehensive high quality rules and
regulations and policies" for child protection were followed throughout
the game's hierarchy.
"We are concerned about the extent to which they're actually being
embedded and implemented at club level," he said.
"We're concerned that may not be the case right across the country."
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