I can't believe that Sunderland are not being more heavily criticised for playing him - they had all the evidence that the prosecution had, had seen all the text messages and had his own admission that he had kissed her, yet still played him. When you read their statement, its cleverly worded in that they played him because they expected him to plead not guilty and sacked him once he pleaded guilty - so in spite his confession to them, they are happy to play him as long as he was happy to lie in court? Rubbish. they must have had an agreement with him that he waits till the start of the trial to plead guilty so that they could play him - he gets paid (about 3 million quid), they stay up, they both win to a degree. Disgrace of a club. Hope they get relegated on the last day of the season to make it extra heartbreaking.

He hadn't pleaded guilty at that point though - should they have suspended him - probably, but the UK justice system is based off of innocent until proven guilty.

Completely agree. I am certain they must have advised him on not pleading guilty till the last moment. Why else would they not immediately sue him?

The UK justice system is based on the premise of innocent until proven guilty and if Johnson told the club that he intended to plead innocent then the club had no grounds to sack him.

I wonder whether everyone here would want Bolasie sacked if he were arrested but insisted that he was innocent

The PFA have been very quiet?

Pro USA & Israel

It seems to me this is fairly straightforward to answer. The three charges on which he was found guilty would have required little active participation from her, but the fourth charge (of which we was found not guilty) is the one in which she would have had to far more actively engage in and, therefore, may be more reluctant to discuss in detail on the stand. Look at it this way: Grooming is established easily, as they had the text messages from his phone. She was groomed; there was nothing she could do about it. Kissing, equally, can be something you're subjected to or, at least, impassively accept. One can be kissed. The same is true of digital penetration. While for many reasons one might not fight back even if one could, one can still sit impassively and "endure" the experience. A blow job, however, you cannot give without being active, either willingly (which I doubt is something she would want to discuss at length in court) or unwillingly (in which case the charge would be rape, and not sex with a minor.) My guess: Guilty on two charges and guilty on the third charge as it followed from the first two. If you know he groomed and kissed her, it isn't a great leap of faith to be believe he put his hand in her pants even with relatively minimal evidence and regardless of whether you find her a convincing witness or not. But the blow-job is harder to prove and this does require her testimony to be far more convincing. And I suspect she was unwilling to elaborate in the required detail on that episode, at least enough to convince the jury that it happened. I don't think the jury's verdict of "not guilty" necessarily means they believed it didn't happen; the burden of proof to be sure simply wasn't there and on that charge, it is easy to see why he was found "not guilty." Remember, also, that "not guilty" means just that; insufficient evidence to establish guilt. It does mean "innocent."

Edited by sydtheeagle (04 Mar 2016 10.44am)

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.