{"id":570932,"date":"2025-11-15T00:31:47","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T00:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/570932\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T00:31:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T00:31:47","slug":"ten-hooligans-avoid-jail-over-mass-brawl-in-manchester-city-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/570932\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten hooligans avoid jail over mass brawl in Manchester city centre"},"content":{"rendered":"

They were spared because it took six years to bring them to justice\"ManchesterManchester Crown Court(Image: Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n

Ten men captured taking part in a mass brawl between football hooligans in Manchester city centre<\/a> have escaped a potential prison sentence because it took six years to bring them to justice.<\/p>\n

The men took part in the fight outside Wave bar on Portland Street on October 26, 2019, when fans of Doncaster Rovers, Scunthorpe United and FC United of Manchester clashed, a court heard.<\/p>\n

Fans of Doncaster Rovers ended up in the city centre because their club’s game at Tranmere Rovers was called off while supporters of Scunthorpe had to come to watch their match against Salford<\/a> City FC, prosecutor Helen Longworth told Manchester Crown Court<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

Join our Court and Crime WhatsApp group HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The court was told FC United and Doncaster fans met up and ended up in a ‘mass brawl’ with some Scunthorpe supporters in which the participants were captured punching, kicking and throwing glasses.<\/p>\n

Police tried to intervene at the time but those involved fled, the court heard. They were later identified from CCTV which captured the scrap.<\/p>\n

When he was interviewed by police, Scunthorpe fan Ethan Chapman, a father-of-one who works for Vodafone, admitted he had downed five or six pints of beer before the fight and, after watching the footage of the violence, admitted he felt ‘disgusted and ashamed’, Ms Longworth told the court.<\/p>\n

Another Scunthorpe fan David Horton, when he was interviewed, admitted he was ’embarrassed’ after viewing the footage, the court was told.<\/p>\n

Another brawler, FC United fan Ashley Shemeld, a gravedigger from Droylsden<\/a>, claimed he had been the victim of an attack. Another supporter involved in the fighting Jack Webster said he had had ‘a few drinks’ and he told officers he was ‘sorry for his actions’, the court was told.<\/p>\n

Declan Windsor also got involved in the fight but he told cops he saw ‘nothing incrimination’ in the footage. Five others declined to answer police questions when they were interviewed, Ms Longworth told the court.<\/p>\n

“It was large-scale acts of violence with upwards of 20 people involved,” the prosecutor told the court, adding that it was fuelled by ‘resentments’ between the supporters.<\/p>\n

Ethan Chapman admits he threw punched but he doesn’t believe any of them landed, his barrister Anna Jones told the court He had ‘acted impulsively’ and had played no part in any planning for the fight, the court was told. “He’s ashamed and disgusted by his behaviour,” said Ms Jones.<\/p>\n

Wave Bar(Image: ABNM Photography)<\/p>\n

Sentencing the men, the Recorder of Manchester Nicholas Dean KC said it was an ‘unusual case’ as the offence was ‘more than six years ago’ and that, had the case come to court sooner a sentencing judge could have considered short jail sentences.<\/p>\n

But the defendants were only arrested and interviewed in 2020 and the case didn’t come to court until 2022 when they pleaded guilty, said Recorder Dean.<\/p>\n

The Recorder went on that ‘someone ought to have realised they should be sentenced well before now’. The judge said that the portion of a sentence to encourage rehabilitation was not now required as the men had not committed any crimes while they waited for the case to come to a conclusion.<\/p>\n

Seven of the defendants who are in work were fined \u00a31,200 and ordered to pay the fine at a rate of \u00a3100-a-month. They are: Jack Griffin, 26, of Saffre Walk, Scunthorpe, a shift team leader; Callum Johnson, 25, of Copplestone Court, Scunthorpe, a sewage pipe engineer; Lewis Page, 31, of Eton Drive, Scunthorpe, a weigh bridge operator; Lee Robinson, 25, of Lancaster Road, Scunthorpe, a warehouse worker; Rory Voulgaris, 26, of Brumby Wood Lane, Scunthorpe, an industrial painter; Jack Webster, 24, of Mere Dyke Road, Scunthorpe, who works for his father’s paving business; Ethan Chapman, 28, of Traingate, Gainsborough, North Lincolnshire.<\/p>\n

An eighth defendant, Ashley Shemeld, 26, of Lydgate Road, Droylsden, a grave digger, was fined \u00a3900 and told to pay it off at \u00a375 per month. His fine was reduced because his income was lower.<\/p>\n

Two other defendants were handed 12-month community orders and ordered to carry out 50 hours of unpaid work. They are:<\/p>\n

David Horton, 28, of Burgley Road in Scunthorpe, who the court heard he was unemployed and in receipt of benefits because of health problems; Declan Windsor, 27, of Kings Court, Scunthorpe, said to be unfit to work because of ‘anxiety and depression’.<\/p>\n

All ten men pleaded guilty to violent disorder. Others involved in the fight have previously been sentenced, the court heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They were spared because it took six years to bring them to justiceManchester Crown Court(Image: Manchester Evening News)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,30,30761,393,181223,4884,2465,8086,101219,1026,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-570932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-droylsden","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-fc-united","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-manchester","15":"tag-manchester-city-centre","16":"tag-salford-city-fc","17":"tag-tameside","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115550903186092677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}