Doyle & Ors v R

A Football Banning Order ancillary to conviction requires both a relevant offence and reasonable grounds to believe that the order would help prevent violence or disorder connected with regulated football matches. The order is preventive, rather than punitive, and does not automatically follow a football-related conviction.

Whether an offence is related to football matches is a fact-sensitive judgment. Travel to or from a match, or a mere but for connection with a match, is insufficient without a further football connection. The statutory risk condition requires a prospective risk of repeated football-related violence or disorder. Only additional requirements may be tailored by the court, and they must relate to regulated football matches.

The appellants were convicted of affray after behaving violently towards a passenger on a train home from a West Ham match. The Crown Court at Reading imposed immediate custodial sentences and six-year Football Banning Orders. The appeals did not challenge the custodial sentences.

The appeals concerned whether the offence was sufficiently related to football to satisfy the first statutory condition for an order, whether the judge had addressed the separate preventive-risk condition, and whether the additional restrictions included in the served orders were lawful.

1. Disposition. The appeals were allowed and the Football Banning Orders were quashed.
2. A Football Banning Order under Football Supporters Act 1989 requires two conditions: conviction for a relevant offence and reasonable grounds to believe that the order would help to prevent violence or disorder at, or in connection with, regulated football matches. If both conditions are met, the order is mandatory. Its purpose is preventive, not punitive.
3. The judge had not made the necessary determination that the affray was related to football matches. His finding that watching the match was a direct cause of the appellants’ conduct established, at most, that they would not otherwise have been on the train and might not have been drunk. That was an insufficient but for connection. The evidence showed an offence caused by drunken conduct, not by football or football-related group identity.
4. The second condition had not been addressed below. It requires a prospective risk of repeated violence or disorder at or connected with regulated matches. It may be met by a single offence, but it is not automatically met because the instant offence is football-related. The court declined to make the assessment itself once the first condition had failed; Boggild [2011] EWCA Crim 1928 illustrated that the condition may not be met.
5. The standard statutory consequences of an order are compulsory and cannot be confined to particular teams or matches. The court may add requirements only under section 14G and only in relation to regulated football matches. The additional restrictions served on the appellants had not been considered by the judge; one was wrongly expressed and the further stadium restriction was unlawful. No alternative preventive order was made.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division). By [2012] EWCA Crim 995, allowed the appeals against the Football Banning Orders and quashed those orders.
• Crown Court at Reading. His Honour Judge McIntyre convicted the appellants of affray, imposed immediate custodial sentences, and made six-year Football Banning Orders.