FOOTBALL FANS HAVE RIGHTS TOO. DO THEY GET A FAIR DEAL?

Last updated : 18 February 2004 By Editor
Danny Lee in the Times:

‘As football fever hots up for Euro 2004 in Portugal this
summer, lawyers and civil liberties groups are concerned
that a million-pound police crackdown on potential hooligans
is disfiguring the beautiful game.

‘With the help of co-ordination from the National Criminal
Intelligence Service, extensive surveillance and £5 million
from the Government, police are obtaining banning orders to
prevent more than 2,500 England fans from travelling to the
championship. Police are using the orders with increasing
frequency. A total of 1,700 supporters were banned for the
2002 World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea, and only 100
for Euro 2000 in the Netherlands and Belgium.

‘Barry Hugill, a spokesman for Liberty, the human rights
group, says: “We are sympathetic to the problem of
hooliganism and we understand why this is being done, but it
sets a bad precedent to start acting in advance of any
crime. Blanket banning orders are fraught with danger.
People will be affected who are innocent.

‘“We mustn’t forget that a football banning order does
deprive people of fundamental liberties, the right to
travel, for instance,” Hugill says.

‘In 2000 the Football (Disorder) Act — renewed by The
Football (Disorder) (Amendment) Act 2002 — was introduced to
allow courts to impose banning orders “by complaint”. Under
the Act, police apply for the orders against people who have
not necessarily been convicted of a football-related
offence, but who have been identified by intelligence as
likely to cause trouble at football games. Intelligence
includes evidence from an array of sources, such as
informants, CCTV and website and e-mail monitoring.

‘Anthony Edwards, a partner at TV Edwards, points out that
there can be an unfortunate interplay of the civil and
criminal process with banning orders. “Police have lost some
criminal trials then used banning order applications to have
a second bite of the cherry. There are obvious concerns
where the police don’t prove a crime but seek to obtain a
banning order on the same evidence.”

‘Franklin Sinclair, a partner at the Manchester office of
Tuckers solicitors and former chairman of the Criminal Law
Solicitors’ Association, is concerned that the use of the
orders is expanding beyond the territory for which they were
designed.

‘“I often deal with ticket-touting cases and I find it
extraordinary that banning orders are used against people
convicted of touting where there hasn’t been any trouble and
there is no evidence that they have caused any trouble,” he
says.

‘“The court gets away with making the order by saying that
the touts are selling tickets to supporters of one team in
the area reserved for the other team’s supporters and that
this may cause violence. There is a very tenuous link.
Banning orders are also often imposed on people convicted of
section 5 public order offences, behaviour likely to cause a
breach of the peace, where they have used abusive or
insulting behaviour. They then face a three-year ban from
football matches. This is too extreme.

‘“It seems to be part of the general drift of this
Government to make minor problems much more serious. Some of
these banning order cases start out as civil matters and
then orders are imposed and a person can end up facing
several years in prison for breaching the order, without the
benefit of a criminal trial.”’