NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather forecasts

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
    • The Great NZ Road Trip
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
    • Cooking the Books
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Sport / Football

Adam Johnson's schoolgirl accuser describes alleged sex abuse

Daily Mail
15 Feb, 2016 05:08 PM7 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Former Sunderland and England player Adam Johnson arrives with partner Stacey Flounders at Bradford Crown Court. Photo / AP

Former Sunderland and England player Adam Johnson arrives with partner Stacey Flounders at Bradford Crown Court. Photo / AP

Adam Johnson's schoolgirl accuser wept as she told police she performed oral sex on the England star and knew she "had done something wrong".

Video recordings of two police interviews with the girl were played at the former Sunderland player's trial at Bradford Crown Court today.

Asked in the first interview how she felt about the alleged sexual activity, the girl said: "As much as I expected it to happen, I was a bit shocked it had. I sort of knew I had done something wrong."

In a second interview, the girl gave more detail about what had happened and tearfully described the sex act.

She said Johnson twice pulled her hand towards his penis, which she referred to as his "thingy". She added: "I felt awkward if I pulled my hand away. I felt compelled to do it."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Johnson, 28, denies two counts of sexual activity with the girl, who was 15 years old at the time of the alleged incident.

The footballer's girlfriend, Stacey Flounders, was not alongside him today as he arrived at court for the second day of his trial today.

The jury watched the alleged victim's police interviews today, during which she described how Johnson was her favourite player.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

She said: "I got a message from Sunderland player Adam Johnson who I'd idolised for quite a while."

The girl said that, after exchanging messages, she met Johnson on January 17 last year, when he signed two Sunderland shirts for her.

She then explained how the player continued to message her, talking about getting a "thank-you kiss".

"I was well up for it. It was a surreal type of thing," she told the police officer.

Discover more

Football

Cairns QC defending disgraced footballer

15 Feb 11:31 PM
Football

'I've had thousands of people call me a slag'

16 Feb 05:26 PM
Football

Adam Johnson 'offered girl money to meet up'

17 Feb 05:11 PM
Football

Johnson victim wanted to kill herself

18 Feb 04:50 PM

"I met up with him again. I gave him his thank-you kiss and more," she said.

The girl described how Johnson exchanged WhatsApp messages with her after their first meeting, saying "you owe me for this" and "am I going to get a thank-you kiss?".

The teenager said that at the second meeting, in the player's Range Rover, Johnson said to her: "I've come for my thank-you kiss."

She said she eventually told him "go on then", and they began kissing.

The girl said: "I was kissing him for quite a while."

"He undid the button on my trousers. It took him a while to do that," she said. "He got his hand down my trousers. He started to put his hands in my knickers."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The girl then described to the officer further sexual activity between the pair.

Later in the interview, the police officer asked the girl what Johnson knew about her.

She replied that the player knew how old she was, what school year she was in and where she sat at Sunderland matches. She said Johnson also knew her date of birth.

She said: "He asked me when I was 16."

The jury were also played a second police interview in which the teenager alleged more serious sexual contact at the same meeting she had previously spoken about.

In this video, the girl described again how Johnson allegedly put her hand on his trousers, over his groin. She then described how she performed oral sex on the footballer.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

She said: "He put my hand there. He put his hand on my back and pushed me downwards."

The girl told the officer: "He said if I kept on going he would have to have sex with us and stuff like that."

The woman police officer asked her how she felt. She said: "Not very good. I was disappointed in myself."

The girl, who appeared to be wearing school uniform during the second interview at a police station in Durham, became tearful as she told the officer how she was feeling.

She had earlier described how she had tried to block out what had allegedly happened.

The girl said she continued messaging Johnson but when he tried to arrange for them to meet again, but she made up excuses or cancelled at the last minute in an effort to avoid him.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

She said: "I didn't want the meetings, but I still wanted the contact. It was good going to the match knowing he had texted me earlier."

When the officer asked her why she did not mention the more serious sexual contact in the first interview, she said there was evidence on text messages to back up everything else she said but not this sex act.

She also said rumours had begun to circulate about the other sexual activity but not about this.

She said she was worried that talking about it "would only make it worse". She added: "It was bad enough already."

The teenager told the officer how she told her father about what happened because "I was getting upset".

"I don't like hiding things from my mum and dad," she said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

After the girl's interviews were played to court, Johnson's lawyer, Orlando Pownall QC, cross-examined the girl and asked why she had told friends to lie about what happened.

She said: "I wanted to keep him [Johnson] out of trouble. I didn't want to get him in more trouble than he was."

The teenager added: "I was scared that people wouldn't believe me. I didn't want to believe that it had happened."

The teenager told the jury: "I tried to forget about it. I was trying to live normally."

The teenager could be seen sobbing on the screens in court about an hour into Mr Pownall's cross-examination. Judge Jonathan Rose ordered a 10-minute break in proceedings.

Flounders has been supporting her boyfriend, with whom she has a child, since his arrest for sexual activity with a child.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Even after he admitted two offences last week, she arrived at his side for the first day of his trial for two further offences on Friday.

But the 26-year-old did not arrive with Johnson at Bradford Crown Court today.

The England midfielder is accused of abusing "his revered position in society" when he had sexual contact with the teenager "in a way that he knew was morally and legally wrong".

He is charged with two counts of sexual activity with a child.

The jury at Bradford Crown Court was told last week that the 15-year-old fan had an "enormous crush on him" and idolised him.

Johnson, who denies the charges, was contacted by the girl via Facebook and the two began exchanging messages before they finally met so he could sign shirts for her.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Prosecutor Kate Blackwell QC said after this first meeting the two joked in their messages about whether Johnson deserved a "thank-you kiss" and they met again.

She then described how the two engaged in sexual activity in the player's black Range Rover at this second meeting.

Johnson has already admitted one count of sexual activity with a child and another of meeting a child following sexual grooming.

Ms Blackwell said: "The Crown's case is that he is guilty of further and more serious sexual activity."

The court heard on Friday that the former £50,000-a-week ($108,600) Sunderland winger sent a message to the schoolgirl saying he "just wanted to get your jeans off" seconds before he told his girlfriend their baby "looks class".

The trial continues.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

- Daily Mail

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Football

Football

How PSG overcame Arsenal to secure a Champions League final spot

07 May 09:17 PM
Auckland FC

Auckland FC name most valuable player after dominating season

07 May 08:03 PM
New Zealand

'True club legend': Community mourns beloved football figure

07 May 05:30 AM

One tiny baby’s fight to survive

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Football

How PSG overcame Arsenal to secure a Champions League final spot

How PSG overcame Arsenal to secure a Champions League final spot

07 May 09:17 PM

PSG will face Inter Milan in the final in Munich on May 31.

Auckland FC name most valuable player after dominating season

Auckland FC name most valuable player after dominating season

07 May 08:03 PM
'True club legend': Community mourns beloved football figure

'True club legend': Community mourns beloved football figure

07 May 05:30 AM
Greatest ever tie? Inter pip Barcelona in 13-goal Champions League thriller

Greatest ever tie? Inter pip Barcelona in 13-goal Champions League thriller

06 May 09:49 PM
Connected workers are safer workers 
sponsored

Connected workers are safer workers 

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP