On Wednesday night, before during and after the UEFA Cup final, over 15 Greater Manchester Police officers were injured under a "severe level of attack" from Rangers fans, a Russian fan was stabbed and 42 arrests were made.
In all probability, a majority of those 42, if charged, will be served with football banning orders, which will stop from them attending any matches in England; however, there will be nothing legal to prevent them from still attending matches in Scotland. Quite clearly, as Alex Salmond as pointed out yesterday, it is a ridiculous anomaly when over 150 Chelsea and Man Utd *fans* on such banning orders, will be prevented from travelling to Moscow for next week's Champions League Final, but thugs involved in Wednesday night's trouble will be able to stroll unimpeded into the next Rangers away match in Scotland. It's high time this legislation was changed, British hooligans should be banned from all British grounds.
2 comments:
What will need to be done is that when a banning order is introduced either side of the border/other parts of the UK, a law should be passed binding the authorities of each jurisdiction to enforce the ban.
Due to the seperate legal systems in the UK, many legal internal legal orders need special procedures for them to be enforced.
An example is a warrant of imprisonment. I used to work for the Scottish Prison Service so I have personal experience with the system.
Essentially a warrant of imprisonment/detention issued by the courts in England-Wales or Northern Ireland is not enforcable in Scotland unless a Scottish court issues a warrant confirming so.
So for example we had prisoners who had committed offences in England. Some English courts would send their warrants (awarding terms of imprisonment for unpaid fines for crimes committed down south) to the prison expecting them to be enforced. These warrants are classed as "foreign" and are no more enforcable than if they were issued by a court in Iran or downtown Dehli.
Therefore the court down in England would write off the warrant as "served" when it had been no such thing. However it looked good for the statistics.
However some English courts knew better and when they heard a "client" with unpaid fines was in Scottish custody they would apply to a Scottish court to enforce the penalty. The court whose jurisdiction the prison was in would grant an enforcement warrant for an unspecified "English charge".
Remember when a "boy racer" who had ratcheted up a number of unpaid fines was caught in Glasgow. As soon as he appeared on the map, the English police requested the courts down there that convicted him to request his fines become a prison sentence and that the Scottish courts should be requested to enforce the sentence.
Such is the mechanics of the British state. By the way this was before devolution and in the last days of the Tory regime.
Sad that some newspapers are falling over themselves to excuse the Rangers fans. Even though as a support they have a lengthy history of this shite. Apparently the 'ring leaders' had Norn irish and English accents. Oh and Rangers themselves have blamed it on elements who attach themselves to them. Thank fuck for TV camera's who show these hypocrites up for what they are.
Conversely at Celtic park yesterday we had scores of decent, proper Rangers fans turning up, some fresh from Manchester to pay their respects to tommy Burns. They were warmly applauded each time they laid their flags and scarfs down. These guys do not deserve to be tarnished with the reputation that so many others seek to get on their behalf.
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