BREAKING: Sunderland player was arrested today for operating…

Adam Johnson is sentenced for six years for child sex offenses.

Adam Johnson, a former Sunderland and England footballer, has been imprisoned for six years for child sex offenses.

The 28-year-old footballer, who has been stripped of his England caps by the FA, admitted grooming and sexual conduct with a youngster last month and was found guilty of a more serious allegation of sexual touching following a trial. A jury cleared him of another charge.

Judge Jonathan Rose passed sentencing, saying Johnson showed no remorse for his acts and considered the victim as “just another girl to get with,” despite knowing she was just 15. His victim had “suffered severe psychological harm” as a result, and the footballer had only himself to blame for his jail sentence.

According to the Daily Mail, Johnson “showed no emotion” as Judge Rose read the sentence, and “he will be taken to spend his first night in a prison cell later today.”

Earlier, prosecutor Kate Blackwell told the court that “this is not a fleeting contact or a fleeting offense.” These offenses were planned, deliberated, and carefully executed.”

She further stated that he was “in the habit of meeting girls on the way back from training to have sex” in secret areas.

In mitigation, the defence said Johnson developed a “disorder” as a result of the attention he received from women as a footballer, and that he was not a “predatory paedophile”.

Before the sentence hearing, it was disclosed that Johnson had filed an appeal against his conviction.

Meanwhile, the NSPCC, a child protection agency, feels the case has “broader ramifications for football” and that “many top clubs are failing to take their child protection responsibilities seriously,” according to the Daily Telegraph.

“We are concerned that this could be a cultural problem in football as a whole, and that clubs may not see incidents like these as a child protection issue,” the charity’s Peter Wanless wrote in a letter to FA chairman Greg Dyke.

Wanless also criticized Johnson’s former club, Sunderland, for how it handled the situation. Margaret Byrne, the club’s chief executive, resigned earlier this month after admitting she was aware Johnson had confessed misconduct following his detention but had permitted him to continue playing.

Adam Johnson’s Child Sex Trial: What He Has Said So Far
23 February

Adam Johnson, an English footballer, returned to court today to face cross-examination in his child sex trial.

The 28-year-old pleaded guilty to grooming and kissing a teenager, but he denies two other serious accusations of sexual behavior including penetration.

A statement from the girl’s father, read out in court last week, said the teenager had “cried her eyes out” and said she wanted to kill herself as she revealed she had done “things” with the player. The family later went to the police.

Johnson began giving evidence in his trial at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

Here’s what he has said so far:

Behaviour was ‘wholly unacceptable’

Johnson admits he knew the girl was 15 years old “pretty much as soon as we first started talking,” but claims their first meetings were “platonic in nature.” The girl was a die-hard Sunderland supporter who would approach him after games for signatures and photos. He admitting to “kissed her fully on the lips” at a second rendezvous in his automobile. “Considering her age, I recognise my behaviour as wholly unacceptable and therefore I withdrew from any further contact with her,” he went on to say.

I had not been a good person.

The athlete admits to “sexting” women in their twenties without the knowledge of his then-pregnant partner, Stacey Flounders. He appeared to choke up with emotion as he spoke about how much he loved Flounders, according to the Daily Mirror. “I had been speaking to people I should not have been speaking to, and had not been a good person to her or our daughter,” he told the court.

‘Is sexual action like kissing?’

When he was arrested, Johnson instantly knew who had made the allegations, he said. “That was the only girl that I knew I was talking to that was under the age of 16,” he said. However, he confessed to initially lying to Flounders and police during his arrest. “I was panicking. I was just worrying about everything, my career, my family – I was honestly in turmoil,” he said. Johnson told the court he was “surprised” the girl had gone to police. Their relationship was “friendly at first”, but had become flirty and “inappropriate from me”, he said. When asked in his first police interview if he had engaged in sexual activity with a child, he apparently asked officers: “Is sexual activity like a kiss? No sexual activity like anything other than a kiss.”

Intimate photo for ‘doctor’

A photograph of Johnson’s penis, taken on his own phone in August 2013, was brought up in court by his barrister, Orlando Pownall, today. “It is not being suggested that this picture was taken for fun or that you were going to send it to someone,” said the QC. “Did you take photos at different times of what I am going to describe as your ‘nether regions’? Why?” Johnson told the court it was “to show the doctor”, to which the defence lawyer replied: “We’ll leave it at that.”