Footballer cleared of grooming girl, 14, who gave false age on Facebook
A professionAl footballer was yesterday cleared of unlawful sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl after it emerged she lied about her age on facebook.
Jack Tuohy, 20, was arrested after the ‘football-mad’ youngster claimed he had sent her explicit messages when she developed a crush on him following a school sports day event at his club, league one oldham Athletic.
she accused him of encouraging her to send pictures of herself naked, and eventually agreed to be picked up in his car where she allegedly performed a sex act
on him. But yesterday a jury took just an hour to clear him on all charges after hearing she had given a false date of birth on her facebook profile that suggested she was 17 and ‘pouted’ in a photograph to make herself seem older than she was.
After the verdicts were given, Mr Tuohy held his head in his hands and sobbed in the dock before being hugged by relatives outside court.
Unlike sunderland and england star Adam Johnson, who continued playing for his premiership club until he pleaded guilty to sexually touching a schoolgirl, for which he was jailed for six years last year, Mr Tuohy was suspended by oldham after being charged last April and is now playing for a nonleague side.
Mr Tuohy, a former apprentice of oldham Athletic’s ‘centre of excellence’, met the 14-year- old during a sports tournament in May 2015 at his club’s Boundary park stadium in oldham, Greater Manchester, where he was handing out medals.
she later told police that over the next five months Mr Tuohy – then 19 – sent her explicit snapchat and text messages and pressured her into meeting for sex by encouraging her to send him naked pictures of herself. The pair later swapped messages which were read to the jury at Minshull street Crown Court, Manchester.
in one, Mr Tuohy suggested going ‘somewhere i know’, adding: ‘stop messing me around – you coming or not.’
she replied: ‘i don’t really meet lads in cars, i’m not sure.’
Mr Tuohy later wrote: ‘Wow, so you’re all talk, wow. Don’t speak to me again, you’re all talk.’ in response, the schoolgirl said that she would do ‘some stuff’.
Mr Tuohy said he would wear ‘something easy to get into, like joggers haha’, adding: ‘You better not back out. Just be confident.’
The court heard that in october 2015 she dressed up in her Manchester City shirt and met the midfielder in his car outside a pub before going to a secluded area where she performed a sex act on him.
police were called in after her parents reported her missing, and officers arrested Mr Tuohy after examining her ipad. in her interview with police the girl said: ‘i wanted to be just friends. Maybe more when i’m older, like the right age, but not now.
‘He said, you’re a good kisser aren’t you. He asked how old i was. He knew he was doing wrong but he didn’t think he would be caught.’
But Mr Tuohy told the jury: ‘it was the way she spoke to me and how mature she was. she spoke flirty and said i was gorgeous and that.’
He denied she had told him her real age, saying: ‘i thought she was 16. i wasn’t forcing her.’
Yesterday Mr Tuohy, from shaw, near oldham, was found not guilty of sexual activity with a child, three counts of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and meeting a girl under 16 years of age following grooming.
family lawyer Jeremy Moore said after the case: ‘Jack always maintained his innocence and is thrilled the jury came to the only sensible verdict.’