Shropshire Star

Shrewsbury football hooligan breached rules over passport

A Shrewsbury football hooligan who is banned from attending matches failed to hand in his passport to police ahead of an England game against Germany, a court heard.

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Callum Marsh, 26, admitted an offence of failing to comply with a banning order on March 22 this year. He was required to deposit his travel documents under the terms of the order.

Callum Marsh

Marsh, of Keelton Close, Bicton Heath, did not travel to the friendly played in Berlin.

He claimed that he had not received the letter directing him to deposit his passport at the town's police station before the deadline.

Telford magistrates heard that the bricklayer received a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years in 2013 for an offence of violent disorder.

He was among a group that took part in a massive brawl involving Shrewsbury Town fans who clashed with Walsall rivals before a League One home game on October 14, 2012.

Abigail Hall, prosecuting, told the magistrates that an official from the UK football policing unit had written to the defendant warning him to surrender his passport and he breached the order by failing to hand it in.

"When he was interviewed on April 14 he said that he had not received the letter.

"He said he was unaware that the teams were playing until he saw the match on TV and had previously handed in his passport when told to," Miss Hall added.

During the 2012 incident Pc Lee Saunders was injured as he tried to stop the violent skirmish as it unfolded in front of horrified shoppers, in Mardol, Shrewsbury, before spilling out across Smithfield Road, bringing traffic to a standstill and costing nearly £60,000 from the public purse to deal with.

When Marsh was convicted in 2013 he was banned for four years and ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work.

Mr Paul Nicholas, defending, said: "It was an oversight on his part.

"He was in the throes of moving his girlfriend to a new address and the letter went to his mother's house."

The magistrates gave Marsh a conditional discharge for the breach until October 2017.

He was also ordered to pay costs of £135 and a victim's surcharge of £20.

Following the disorder Shrewsbury Crown Court was shown CCTV of the ugly scenes which involved multiple fights with men kicking, punching and flooring one another in the street.

When Marsh was sentenced Judge Graham Cliff said: "This was in a public place where members of the public were no doubt frightened, inconvenienced and in which a police officer was injured."

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