Chelsea fans handed five-year football ban for Paris race shame
FOUR Chelsea fans in the Paris Metro race row were banned from football matches yesterday.
Video showed Souleymane Sylla, a Frenchman, being pushed off a carriage to chants of ‘We’re racist, we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it’.
It happened as Chelsea fans were in the French capital to watch their club’s Champions League match against Paris St Germain on February 17. Former policeman Richard Barklie, ex-public schoolboy Josh Parsons and decorator William Simpson were yesterday given five-year banning orders.
Jordan Munday, 20, was banned from matches for three years.
District Judge Gareth Branston told Stratford magistrates’ court in east London: ‘This was an abhorrent, nasty, offensive, arrogant and utterly unacceptable behaviour and cannot be allowed in modern, civilised society. It must be stamped out.’
He said the ringleaders were 20year-old Parsons and Barklie, a 50year-old former RUC officer and a director with the World Human Rights Forum.
The men had denied being racist and claimed Mr Sylla was pushed off the train because it was full.
But footage was played to court showing that some of the men joined in the racist chanting as the Parisian was pushed.
In a statement read out in court, Mr Sylla told how he was violently and repeatedly forced off the train.
‘I again approached the carriage, explaining to this person I wanted to get back on the train,’ said the Frenchman. ‘ He didn’t seem to understand what I said to him, and other supporters behind him were shouting and singing in English. As I don’t speak English, I didn’t understand what they said. Another person made a sign indicating to the colour of the skin on his face.’
Barklie admitted twice pushing Mr Sylla – but accused the Parisian of shouting and being aggressive.
But Judge Branston said he joined in the racist chanting of ‘John Terry is a racist and that’s the way we like it’. He said the former policeman ‘proved to be a menace’ and had ‘demonstrated aggressive, disorderly conduct’. Parsons, who used to work for a finance company in Mayfair and lives in Dorking, Surrey, leaned out of the train and shouted ‘Where were you in World War Two?’ and ‘F*** the IRA’, the court heard.
Munday, 20, of Sidcup, south-east London, is said to have joined in the racist chanting, an allegation he denied. He had earlier ‘fronted up’ a man while walking through Paris, pushing him twice before being told to calm down by police, the court heard.
Simpson, 26, of Ashford, Surrey, also played a part in pushing Mr Sylla off the Metro train.
He has previously been arrested twice over race- connected incidents, including once allegedly racially abusing a taxi driver.
A fifth man, Dean Callis, 32, from Islington, received a five-year banning order in an earlier hearing.
The French inquiry into the incident is ongoing and could still result in a trial and prison sentences, a judicial source in Paris said.