Footballer Adam Johnson has been jailed for six years for grooming and sexual activity with a girl aged 15.
Sentencing the ex-Sunderland player, Judge Jonathan Rose told him he had abused a position of trust and caused his victim “severe psychological harm”.
The judge told Johnson, 28, he had engaged in sexual activity with her knowing she was under 16.
Bradford Crown Court heard the sexual abuse happened in the footballer’s Range Rover in January 2015.
Judge Rose told the footballer, who played 12 times for England, that the girl had “suffered threats and thousands of abusive remarks” on social media.
Judge Rose said there had been “an abuse of trust – you are trusted by young fans to behave properly”.
He said: “She had only just turned 15 when you began grooming her, because, as you were to admit, you found her sexually attractive.”
The judge told Johnson the offences happened “at a time when you were engaged in frequent sexual intercourse with multiple partners”.
At the start of his trial last month, Johnson had admitted grooming the girl and one charge of sexual activity, relating to kissing her. He was found guilty of sexual touching and cleared of one charge relating to another sexual act.
Judge Rose said Johnson had had “every opportunity” to enter guilty pleas to the charges he finally admitted. He ordered the footballer to pay £50,000 of the prosecution’s £67,132 costs.
During the three-week trial the jury heard the former winger met the girl after agreeing to sign football shirts for her.
He admitted kissing the teenager but told the jury an encounter in his Range Rover “went no further”.
The girl told the court he had “put his hands down her pants” and she performed a sex act on him.
The jury cleared Johnson over the sex act claim but convicted him by a 10-2 majority on the sexual touching charge.
In a victim impact statement read to court, the girl said she had been forced to endure thousands of malicious and slanderous remarks on social media and had been approached by a stranger asking about her relationship with the footballer.
She felt at risk going out and her schoolwork had suffered “massively”, the court was told.
“I have entered many dark places over this 12-month period,” she said.
“Ultimately, it was like I was being taunted as if to say he could do what he wants and get away with it.”
In another statement her mother said there “had been no winners” and defended the decision to report the matter to police in order to “protect other vulnerable children”.
She stressed the family had never sought financial gain.
