A man has been banned from attending football matches in the UK for 18 months after throwing a bottle into a crowd of Aberdeen fans during a game against Rangers.
David Roy, 44, was standing in the Rangers section at Pittodrie when the Glasgow club played Aberdeen on August 5 last year and hurled the bottle over the segregation line and into the home supporters’ section.
The scaffolder was also handed 135 hours of unpaid work by Sheriff Ian Wallace when he appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court for sentencing.
The incident happened near the end of the season opener, which finished in a 1-1 draw following Bruce Anderson’s late equaliser for the home side.
After the bottle was thrown, stadium security staff studied CCTV images of Roy caught in the act.
Roy, of Morefield Road, Glasgow, previously pled guilty to culpably and recklessly throwing a bottle into an area of people in the South Stand home section, narrowly missing spectators. Roy’s solicitor said: “He hasn’t been in trouble since this incident occurred. My submission on a football banning order is that it’s not necessary. He had no history of that type of offending leading up to that point.”
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However Sheriff Wallace did not agree. He said: “I do intend to deal with this by way of a community payback order. This is a punishment that requires you to pay back to the community for the crime you have committed.
“Even though it was a plastic bottle it could have caused injury and could have caused disorder.
“It’s important that all sports fans act responsibly and people attend sports events in the reasonable expectation that they will not be put in danger.”
He ordered Roy to do 135 hours of unpaid work in eight months.
He added: “In addition I will impose a football banning order for a period of 18 months which will take you up to, broadly speaking, the end of the next football season. For a period of 18 months you will be prohibited from attending regulated football matches within the UK.”
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