The footballer Adam Johnson has told a court that he Googled “legal age of consent” during a dressing room chat with fellow Sunderland players – and not in connection with alleged sexual activity with a schoolgirl.
Giving evidence for the first time in his trial, the midfielder admitted grooming and kissing the girl, then 15, but denied two more serious sexual offences.
Johnson said he Googled “legal age of consent” on 3 February, four days after the alleged sexual encounter, during a discussion with other Sunderland players about laws around the world. “It is nothing to do with [the girl],” he told the jury at Bradford crown court on Monday.
“We were talking in the dressing room about a programme that was on a couple of days ago about different ages and things like that. There’s a lot of players in our team that are from all sorts of countries and we were having a discussion about different laws and ages in different parts of the world.”
During questioning by his counsel Orlando Pownall QC, Johnson admitted he sent explicit text messages to a number of women in their 20s in January and February last year.
He said his relationship with his girlfriend, Stacey Flounders, was going through a rough patch at the time, and that it was “all my fault”. He added: “I had been speaking to people who I shouldn’t have been speaking to and generally not being a very good person to her [Flounders].”
Johnson told jurors that his employer, Sunderland AFC, knew he had admitted kissing a schoolgirl after grooming – both child sex offences – and he had been represented by a solicitor acting for the club in his second police interview.
Asked about the schoolgirl, Johnson said he knew her because she would wait in the car park outside the Stadium of Light for a picture with him after matches.
He denied having contemplated sexual activity with the girl when he accepted her Facebook friend request and then asked for her mobile number to “organise how to get a signed shirt to her”.
The jury has heard that Johnson asked the girl what year she was in at school within hours of them swapping texts, to which she replied that she was in year 10.
Questioned by Pownall about why he asked her age, Johnson told jurors: “At that time it was just conversation. I was chatting as normal.”
When asked why he told her not to tell anyone she was messaging him, Johnson said: “Loads of reasons – I had a girlfriend, I knew what could be made of speaking to a girl that age, I didn’t want her to tell her friends and them to come and ask me for shirts as well.”
The footballer said it would have been an “absolute disaster” if someone had photographed him with another girl in his car.
Explaining his background, the 28-year-old said he left school with four GCSEs and joined Middlesbrough FC.
“I think it’s every young boy’s dream. You get put on a pedestal, people screaming your name – it’s the best feeling in the world. But you also get everything done for you and get a lot of things easy.”
Earlier, the court heard that Johnson had given a prepared statement to police in which he accepted the “stupidity” of his actions and said: “She’s a child and ought to have been safe in my company.”
Daniel Thomas, a junior prosecutor in the case, read out the statement to the jury of eight women and four men. Thomas said Johnson told police he had “no specific recollection” of being sexually aroused but admitted it was a possibility.
He said his initial meetings with the girl were “platonic in nature” and she would regularly approach him and request signed shirts.
Reading Johnson’s statement, Thomas said: “I accept the stupidity of my actions.”
He said Johnson described his actions as “wholly unacceptable” and said he withdrew from any further contact with the girl because of her age and his own personal situation.
The trial continues.
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