Footballer Adam Johnson denies engaging in sex act with girl, 15

England footballer Adam Johnson has told a jury he did not have oral sex with a 15-year-old girl.

He began giving evidence in his trial yesterday at Bradford Crown Court. He is accused of sexual activity with a child.

The 28-year-old former Sunderland winger has admitted grooming and kissing the teenager.

Orlando Pownall, defending, asked Johnson: “You pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child and meeting a child following sexual grooming. Did you accept kissing [the girl]?”

Johnson said: “Yes.”

Mr Pownall continued: “Did you digitally interfere with her or indulge in oral sex with her?”

The footballer answered: “No, I never.”

Johnson told the jury he knew kissing the girl was an offence but said he did not realise that communicating with her with the intention of kissing her prior to meeting was also an offence.

He told the jury that online searches he carried out about the legal age of consent following his second meeting with the teenager had “nothing to do with” her.

He said the searches were in relation to “discussion the dressing room” about the age of consent in different countries around the world.

“We were having a discussion in the dressing room about a programme that was on a couple of nights ago about different ages and things like that,” he said.

The court heard that Johnson accepted the girl as a friend on Facebook but declined her request to follow him on Instagram. They exchanged telephone numbers and swapped messages on WhatsApp.

He said he asked for the teenager’s number because she had been asking for signed shirts.

When asked why he told her not to tell anyone she was messaging him, he 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.”

When asked how he feels now about the messages, he said: “Embarrassed. Awful. I shouldn’t have ever done it.”

He said he was “surprised” to hear there were 43 A4 pages of WhatsApp messages exchanged between them.

Johnson said he knew it was a “possibility” that he would be touching the girl sexually when they met in his car and said he wanted to do that. He told the court: “That was stupidity from me and I really regret that.”

The trial continues.