Maguire conviction nullified as he appeals

Harry Maguire’ sc on viction for assaulting a police officer and attempted bribery has been nullified after it was confirmed he had lodged an appeal against Tuesday’s guilty verdict.

The Manchester United and England defender, pictured, had been convic te data court on the Greek island of Syros for those offences and handed a 21-month suspended prison sentence. No date has yet been fixed for the appeal and, while United would like the matter dealt with as soon as possible, they recognise it could take a number of months.

A club spokesman said: “An appeal against yesterday’s verdict was lodged this morning by Harry’ s legal team. In accordance with the Greek judicial process, the filing of an appeal extinguishes the initial court verdict and nullifies the conviction.

“The appeal has been accepted and will lead to a full retrial in a more senior court. This means that Harry has nocri minal record and is once again presum ed in nocent until proven guilt y. Accordingly, he is not subject to any international travel restrictions.”

His brother Laurence had earlier said there was “no chance” of an apology being issued, after a lawyer representing two Greek police officers said that doing so might lead to a withdrawal of some of the complaints. L aurence Maguire, who plays for Chesterfield, tweeted: “Absolute no chance Harry will be apologising. Daisy (Maguire’s sister) and no one in the group was interviewed by the police.”

The latter part of the tweet referenced a comment made by prosecution lawyer Yoannis Paradissis, who said it was “strange” that part of Maguire’ s defence had been that his sister Daisy had been injected with an unknown substance prior to the incident which led to his arrest in Mykonos last week, when she had made no mention of it when interviewed by police.