Girl ‘excited’ after Adam Johnson meeting

A teenage girl has told a jury how her best friend was “excited” after she had a sexual encounter with England footballer Adam Johnson in his car.

Johnson’s trial was shown a video-recorded police interview in which the teenager described how she was with her friend before she went to meet the 28-year-old former Sunderland winger in his Range Rover in January last year.

Johnson has admitted grooming the girl’s friend and has pleaded guilty to sexual activity with the same girl, who was 15 at the time, relating to kissing in his car.

But the footballer denies two further charges of sexual activity with the same girl, which prosecutors have described as “more serious”.

In her police interview, her best friend said how, at first, she did not believe her friend “because he’s a footballer, he’s famous and she’s only 15”. But she explained how she changed her mind after a seeing a message Johnson sent to her friend which said: “Just wanted to get your pants off”.

Giving evidence over a video-link, the girl told the jury: “She (her friend) said that they talked on Snapchat and he’d asked her to send a naked picture and that’s all I can remember about it.”

The girl said: “She told me not to say anything.”

“She told me that she’d been texting him before she went away and he offered to meet her for money.”