A Netball umpire who confessed to abusing his role to prey on an underage girl knew the consequence of his action – he’d even written it down.
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Adam Johnson, son of former Dapto Netball Club president Jackie Johnson, was newly married when he groomed the teen via Facebook in late July 2016.
He was arrested on August 11 and charged with procuring a child for unlawful sexual activity after the teen reported the inappropriate communication to police.
He was also charged with sending explicit material to a child over, following an unrelated investigation which found he had explicit pictures of himself to a 15-year-old girl via Instagram in February 2016.
Johnson pleaded guilty to both offences in Wollongong Local Court this week.
Before his arrest he’d written a code of conduct for himself to avoid being found out.
“Get caught – GO TO JAIL”.
There it was, clear as day, in a typed Word document on Johnson’s laptop labelled “management plan”.
A manifesto of sorts, the three page document was clearly produced sometime after his 2012 offences and before his arrest in August 2016.
It was likely a byproduct of the counselling he was required to undertake as part of the suspended prison sentence he was given for sending indecent material to an underage girl in the ACT in 2010.
Under the headline “Goals/Rules”, Johnson had set out a list of guidelines to keep him on the straight and narrow.
“Stay off Facebook after 8.30pm; don’t use computer in my room; have no one under 16 on Facebook apart from family and family friends,” he wrote.
“If I follow this, I won’t find myself being bored on Facebook and talking to people late at night.”
He also listed spending time on Facebook looking at young girl’s profiles and talking to underage girls as “warning signs”.
Under the “Consequences” headline, Johnson had split his thoughts into two categories – the consequences of offending, and the consequences of getting caught.
He wrote that he feared the loss of love and support from his family and close friends if he reoffended.
The thought of going to jail should he be found out appeared so distressing he chose to write the consequence – “GO TO JAIL” – in capital letters.
It is not known when the plan was crafted or whether Johnson was still trying to abide by it when he got caught, however one thing is certain: he ended up where he feared he would.
