Mackems Get Off With Ban After Derby Day Trouble!

Last updated : 24 April 2009 By Footy Mad - Editor

Andrew Robert Lawson and Anthony Richard Barrass both pleaded guilty at Sunderland Magistrates' Court yesterday to running on to the pitch at the Stadium of Light.

Both men were arrested in separate incidents after the Sunderland-Newcastle game on October 25 last year.

Magistrates heard the case of 40-year-old Barrass first.

Prosecutor Claire Ward described how he was apprehended by two stewards after being seen on the pitch.

Nick Musgrove, defending, said Barrass, of Manet Gardens, South Shields, had been a season ticket holder for nine years.

He had never been in any trouble, and committed the offence in "sheer jubilation that Sunderland had finally beaten Newcastle".

In the second case, Miss Ward said Lawson, 30, was brought in to the stadium's police custody suite by stewards after going on to the playing area.

Lawson initially said in interview he had been pushed on to the edge of the pitch by surging fans, and had not run over the grass.

But CCTV stills clearly showed him on the field.

Miss Ward added that Lawson, of Gordon Terrace, Sunderland, had previous convictions for battery, being drunk and disorderly and resisting a police officer.

Speaking in his defence, Mr Musgrove said Lawson now accepted he was on the pitch, but had not been involved in any violence.

He added that none of his client's previous convictions were football related.

Sentencing the two men separately, magistrates imposed 18-month conditional discharges and ordered they pay £60 court costs.

Applications for football banning orders by the prosecution were refused.