Allen, R. v

Where an offender has been convicted of a relevant offence under Football Spectators Act 1989, section 14A(2) requires a football banning order if the court has reasonable grounds to believe that the order would help to prevent violence or disorder connected with regulated football matches. The provision confers no discretion to withhold the order once that condition is met. Violence includes threatened violence, and the statutory violence or disorder need not itself occur in connection with football.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Newcastle Crown Court to affray arising from disorder at Newcastle Central Station after a friendly match involving Sunderland. He received a 12-month community order with 100 hours’ unpaid work and a three-year football banning order.

He appealed only against the banning order. He withdrew the ground that the order was unlawful, but maintained that it should not have been imposed in the circumstances. The central issue was whether the statutory conditions for a mandatory football banning order were satisfied.

1. Appeal dismissed. The appellant’s affray was a relevant offence for the purposes of section 14A of the Football Spectators Act 1989. Schedule 1 paragraph (d) covered an offence involving violence or threatened violence during the statutory period surrounding a regulated football match, at premises which the offender was entering, leaving or present at. Newcastle Central Station was such premises, and Sunderland AFC was a qualifying club.
2. Section 14A(2) required the sentencing court to make a football banning order if it had reasonable grounds to believe that the order would help to prevent violence or disorder at, or in connection with, regulated football matches. It was properly so satisfied. The appellant had played a visible part in the disorder and there was material showing his association with persons known as football risk supporters.
3. The statutory language was mandatory. Once the offence fell within Schedule 1 and the section 14A(2) condition was met, the court had no discretion whether to make the order. The appellant’s alternative submission that the order should nevertheless not have been imposed therefore could not succeed.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — dismissed the appeal against the football banning order: [2011] EWCA Crim 3076.
• Newcastle Crown Court — following a guilty plea to affray, imposed a 12-month community order with 100 hours’ unpaid work and a three-year football banning order.