England’s modern hooligans: A chef, nurse and engineer
SIX England fans including a psychiatric nurse and a trainee engineer were jailed in France yesterday for drunken violence at Euro 2016.
The hooligans hurled bottles at riot police as trouble flared before Saturday’s match against Russia, prosecutors alleged.
A 16-year- old also arrested after throwing a bottle at police had already been handed over to French social services and banned from attending any other games.
Meanwhile, West Midlands Police arrested a man who had returned to Britain after allegedly identifying him from footage of the clashes in Marseille. Daniel Warlow, 24, from Tipton will appear before Birmingham magistrates accused of being involved in disorder on Friday at the UEFA European Championship.
At a court in Marseille yesterday, psychiatric nurse Ian Hepworth, 41 from Sheffield, was jailed for three months for throwing two bottles at police. Officers said he threw one before moving forward to pick up a second bottle.
Hepworth told the court: ‘My job is to help people. I did something stupid. I wanted to impress my new French friends.’
His mother said she feared he could lose his job, but insisted it was right to crack down on people who behaved as he did.
Miriam Fox, 67, of Sheffield, added: ‘I don’t know why he has behaved so irresponsibly. We have to have no tolerance on violence.’
Chef Alex Booth, who turned 20 in prison the day after his arrest, gasped as he was jailed for two months. He admitted throwing a plastic beer cup but denied it was towards police.
Booth, from Huddersfield, had pleaded with the judge to spare him jail, saying: ‘I would like to sorry to the police and the people and city of Marseille.
‘I’m not a violent person. I’m hard-working and have never had anything to do with football hooliganism.’
After he was sentenced, his father, Chris, 52, shouted: ‘It’s a miscarriage.’ Later, he said: ‘He is being made a scapegoat. We are very respectable people.’
Steven Cornell, 28, whose girl- friendnant at is their seven home months’in Hudders- pregfield, was jailed for two months. He claimed he threw a bottle in self-defence after being attacked by a gang of masked Russians. He said: ‘A group of 15 lads put gloves and balaclavas on and started to throw punches. ‘I was very scared so we backed off. I had a plastic cup which I threw and that was it.
‘I’m not a criminal – I’ve never been in court before.’
It emerged last night that he once appeared in a Panorama documentary after being arrested during the 2006 World Cup in Germany as a teenager, boasting he had broken a police order to stay out of Stuttgart.
Apprentice engineer Paul Jackson, 21, from Halifax, shook his head as he was jailed for a month for throwing bottles at police. He claimed he acted in self-defence after a Russian or French fan threatened him.
Last night, his mother Lindsey, 61, from Todmorden, West Yorkshire, said he travelled to Marseille with two friends and one of their parents to watch England play. She claimed he was an ‘extremely well mannered’ man, adding: ‘His friend’s father has been to a lot of England games and said this is the worst situation he’s ever seen.’
Lee Phillips, 23, from Taunton, was jailed for a month and banned from France for a year after throwing bottles.
Construction worker Ashley Kelly, a 26-year-old father of one from Birmingham, who threw seven bottles in the stadium during Saturday’s match, was jailed for three months.