Security staff tell football fans to show their bras

FEMALE football fans were forced to show their bras to stewards during security checks.

The women, including one 70-year-old, had to lift up their tops – in front of queues of men – as they entered the ground. Female stewards even asked to feel the bras if the they were underwired.

Children as young as five were also searched. Last night supporters described the checks – believed to have been done to prevent potential weapons being smuggled in – as a gross invasion of privacy.

The incident happened on Saturday afternoon as several hundred fans of Grimsby Town arrived for their side’s League Two fixture at Stevenage Borough’s Lamex Stadium.

It was condemned by the Mariners Trust, which represents more than 3,000 Grimsby fans. Vice president Paul Savage said: ‘If you had not seen it with your eyes you would struggle to believe it happened.

‘It was described to me by a police officer as the same kind of search you would receive in a custody suite on a Friday night. Grimsby Town has a large contingent of female supporters. There seems to be no reason why anyone would need to check a woman’s bra at any event, let alone a football match. They asked a 70-year-old woman to lift up her top. It was completely wrong. I spoke to a man whose five-year-old son was in tears.’

Trust chairman Jon Wood wrote to Stevenage alleging that the searches were unlawful and ‘effectively a sexual assault’.

‘Several female supporters were asked to lift their tops up to show their bras to female stewards,’ he wrote.

‘This decision – in the queue in front of other supporters, including men and male stewards – is a gross invasion of privacy.’ Items seized during the searches included a small bottle of hand sanitiser, contact lens solution, cough sweets and medication.

Stevenage Borough general manager Bob Makin said: ‘We have been inundated with phone calls and received letters in writing. There are a large number of complaints. We are investigating.’

Hertfordshire Police said they had received no complaints about the behaviour of the stewards but had been aware of disorder involving Grimsby fans before a game at Chesterfield a fortnight earlier.

Littlejohn – Page 19