'I hope this is finished by Friday. It's a bit boring now': How arrogant Adam Johnson joked around during his child sex trial and was even told off by the judge    

Adam Johnson is facing jail after being found guilty of sexual activity with a child. He was reprimanded by a judge for joking around during his trial  

Adam Johnson was arrogant until the last, seemingly oblivious to the life behind bars which now surely awaits this disgraced sexual predator and one-time England star.

During a break in proceedings in the early part of his three-week trial – which concluded with a jury finding him guilty of sexual activity with a 15-year-old schoolgirl – he was scolded by the judge for his ‘discourteous behaviour’, something we were unable to report at the time.

Johnson had been joking and chatting with the security officer who sat with him in the dock at the back of the court.

His aloof and obtuse demeanour was entirely in keeping with a millionaire footballer who made a sober judgement to groom and sexually abuse a child.

Outside of the courtroom and, as the trial approached its third week, he commented to a friend: ‘I hope this is finished by Friday. It’s a bit boring now’.

His mobile phone - a major player in his demise - was also never far from his grasp as soon as the judge had departed, at which point his misplaced swagger would invariably return. He even let a door swing in the face of his junior barrister as they left court during the jury’s deliberations.

In short, Johnson thought he was above the law. As he will learn when, if and surely, he goes to bed inside his prison cell for the first time, he is not. 

The former Sunderland star, sacked at the start of his trial, receives a police escort at court on Tuesday

He remained void of emotion when the guilty verdict was returned, but the colour was drained from his stony face.

He was a man who had it all. Even the prosecution listed his ‘glittering career, beautiful girlfriend, healthy baby, millionaire mansion, handsome cars and more money than he could spend’.

Sadly, for Johnson’s partner Stacey Flounders and their baby daughter, it was not enough, he could not resist the pursuit of a girl he knew from the outset was underage, abusing his celebrity status to lure her in on the promise of a signed Sunderland shirt.

The money and material goods, of course, will probably be waiting for Johnson when his sentence is over.

But his football career is finished. Even if the 28-year-old has served his time in his early thirties and with his skillset and fitness relatively intact, no football club in the land would – or should – employ a convicted child-sex offender.

That he extended his career by nearly 12 months – earning £3million in the process – despite having said he told Sunderland that he had groomed and kissed the girl in March of last year, is something that does not rest easy with supporters.

The club responded by insisting they did not know he intended to plead guilty to grooming and one count of sexual activity on February 10. 

Johnson and ex-partner Stacey Flounders leave court earlier this week after the trial judge began summing up

Johnson cut a composed figure outside court but was seen joking inside and was reprimanded

Sunderland sacked their £10m winger the following day, but Johnson’s legal team have accused them of playing him for nearly a year because they feared relegation from the Premier League.

His barrister, Orlando Pownall QC, told the court: 'Sunderland choose for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly, whether for commercial considerations or in the knowledge they were facing relegation and didn’t want to lose one of their players, they allowed him to play. It might be in hindsight they regret that decision.’

In truth, however, Johnson’s best days were already consigned to the past. The court heard how his victim – a Sunderland season-ticket holder who ‘idolised’ the player - would watch YouTube videos of ‘Jinky Johnson’, clips of the daring dribbles which earned him a reputation as one of the country’s brightest prospects following his graduation into Middlesbrough’s first team.

That, though, was where the best of Johnson resided in recent years – archived video footage.

For he never built on that early promise, be it at Manchester City – who paid £7m for him in 2010 – or at Sunderland, the club where, back in his native North East, it was hoped he would recapture his sparkle after two-and-a-half years on the bench at the Etihad.

It was in Manchester that Johnson rented a £4m mansion from Cristiano Ronaldo. The palatial Alderley Edge abode was complete with five bedrooms, indoor swimming pool, steam room, jacuzzi, gym and wine area.

It was the wine area of the swanky bars nearby, however, where Johnson was said to prefer, much to the concern of staff at City. Johnson was, for example, somewhat alarmed to learn that manager Roberto Mancini and assistant David Platt were neighbours and could keep tabs on his social activity. 

During the trial it emerged Johnson, left, had cheated on his partner with other women as well as the child

Johnson, right, appears at Peterlee Magistrates Court last May accompanied by Flounders

At 22 years old, perhaps this was a classic case of too much, too young. It was, after all, a different world to the terraced streets of Easington in which he was raised by dad, David, and mum, Sonia.

And they were humble surrounds. Easington is Billy Elliot country and, as Johnson did his dancing on the football pitch, there were echoes of that cobbled path to fame and glory.

Johnson’s, too, was a fairytale story, the boy who had emerged from the coal-mining village to take his place among the superstars of oil-rich City.

Within three months of his arrival in Manchester he had debuted for England at Wembley, where, in 1998, he scored twice for Peterlee Boys before an international match.

The muddy adidas boots he wore that day remain a cherished possession of his parents. Eighteen years later, however, that same boot manufacturer were the first to dump the shamed star when he pleaded guilty to two of his four charges at the outset of his trial.

That Johnson’s deal with adidas was worth as little as £10,000 per season served to highlight how far that star had fallen - the last of his 12 England caps was nearly four years ago and he had scored just twice since his arrest a year ago. 

Johnson leaves his home in County Durham on Wednesday morning on his way to court

Back in Easington, and before the allegations of child sex, they continued to celebrate and support the local lad done good. Johnson’s school, Easington Academy, were proud of the autographed Middlesbrough and England shirts which adorned the walls.

Johnson was a local hero. He would drink in the Half Moon pub with friends and, closer to his £1.8m mansion in County Durham, he would regularly buy a round for all of the punters at the Castle Eden Inn.

Inside the Easington Colliery Club, watering hole of former miners and many of the town’s unemployed, they toasted the return of one of their own when Johnson signed for Sunderland in 2012. Johnson’s uncle was among the regulars and would take the supporters’ bus from the club to matches. 

Johnson, on bail, celebrates scoring against Newcastle in the Premier League in October

Adam Johnson in 2004 when he was a member of Middlesbrough's academy

For a lot of folk in Easington, football was an escape from the economic depression which had set in following the closure of the pit in 1993.

Johnson’s wealth – which he admitted in court was ‘unimaginable’ when considered in the context of the boy who left school at 15 with 4 GCSEs – had offered him and his family an escape of their own.

He bought his parents and sister, Faye, luxury houses near to his own in Castle Eden and construction of another property was put on hold last year, shortly after his arrest. 

It was on that day that Johnson – shaking and gripping onto a bar in his games room – said ‘his world was turned upside down’.

For the next 12 months he made out that he was the victim of the girl’s untruths. Johnson, in fact, was the liar all along.

His final journey before he receives a substantial prison sentence will take him past the casino at the entrance to the car park of Bradford Crown Court.

Johnson rolled the judicial dice – ‘confess and avoid’ was the tactic the prosecution accused him of employing – and lost.

As the guilty verdict was returned and the realisation hit home that he is highly likely to lose his liberty, finally, Adam Johnson lost his arrogance.