TwinMummy you are being ridiculous.
Attitudes like yours are the reason sex offenders like Adam Johnson think they can justify what they do.
She's fifteen and knows what she's doing, so that's okay. She's almost legal age, so that's okay. She was a fan and must have wanted it, so that's okay. She contacted him, so that's okay. She's full of hormones, so that's okay. She got in his car, so that's okay.
It's not okay.
She is a child. Some people seem to believe that children in their mid-teens are not as vulnerable as younger children. They believe that these children aren't as damaged as younger children when they come into contact with an abuser.
That's wrong. They are children. They might be exploring new emotions, feeling hormonal, and testing boundaries, but that doesn't make them "not innocent" when a child abuser like Adam Johnson takes advantage of their age and inexperience to abuse them and then blames them for it.
Try reading about what came out in court Guardian Link Here
She was a young girl who idolised this man, but that doesn't mean she wanted to kiss him, have him touch her, or perform any sort of sex acts with him or for him.
She had his name on her football shirt, wanted her photograph taken with him, had him on her birthday cake even. She sent him a friend request on Facebook even.
The sort of stuff that children do when they admire someone. At worst she had a childish crush. It doesn't mean she actually wanted any of the sexual things that followed at his instigation.
But he was the one who recognised her as the young girl outside the stadium, who asked her for her for her number, who made efforts to find out her age, and how close to sixteen she might be, and ignored the fact that she had only just turned fifteen, and sent her hundreds of messages to groom her for sex.
He is the one who has admitted that he gave her his mobile number because he wanted "sexual activity" with her.
"Giving evidence, Johnson claimed that she was the first fan he had ever given his mobile number to and that he did it because he wanted sexual activity with her. Within an hour, he had asked her age. “Year 10,” she replied. “Will you still send me a signed shirt?”
As the conversation went on, he asked: “Where do you go out?” She replied: “I’m not old enough to go out.” He said: “Yeah but you look old enough. When [are] you 16?” When she replied that her birthday was months away, Johnson said: “Ages, then lol.”"
He then arranged to meet her, under the pretext of giving her a signed football shirt. And once that meeting took place, he was the one who deliberately tried to make her feel obligated to give him a sexual favour in return for the gift.
According to the news reports he has admitted that in court. He gave her a gift to make her feel she owed him sex.
"Days later, Johnson messaged her, saying: “Thought I would’ve got a thank you kiss for the shirt.” He admitted under cross-examination that he wanted her to think she owed him a “sexual favour”."
He was the one who, according to the evidence in court, turned the conversations they had by text to sexual conversations every single time.
"Reading more like flirty texts between two teenagers, Johnson was always the one steering the conversation towards sex. It was, Blackwell told the jury, “grooming in its purest form”."
She does not, to me, sound like she was able to deal with this. She might have responded to his sexual messages at the time, but she sounds well out of her depth to me.
A man she admired and may have had a crush on was paying her attention, being nice to her, giving her presents, and then by his own admission was making her feel obligated to give him sexual favours in return. She was out of her depth, confused, and despite what you claim she wasn't trying to get herself out of trouble.
She lied to try to protect him, and she was frightened she wouldn't be believed if she told the truth. She was bullied at school and on-line, within just days of his arrest. Grown men chanted songs about her on the football terraces of the team she supported. They supported him and vilified her. Some fuckwit reporter has described her as a "temptation" and people like you assume she knew what she was doing and wasn't as innocent as she claimed.
You are wrong and you are dangerous. Because your attitude supports abusers like Adam Johnson even as you criticise him, because you are making justifications based on her age and any perceived behaviour that may have occurred because of it.
Because you are denying that she, at fifteen, is not a child, not young enough to be a 'real' or 'entirely innocent' victim of him and his abuse.
You are wrong.