'Exceptionally short' football fan has appeal rejected

A FOOTBALL hooligan who says he was too short to play a serious part in the rioting when Rangers played a European final in Manchester has failed to have his sentence reduced on appeal.

Some 125,000 Rangers fans descended on the city for the Uefa Cup final against Zenit St Petersburg in May 2008, and trouble erupted in a fan zone set up in Piccadilly Gardens.

James Bell, 44, of Corrie View, Cumbernauld, was one of 12 men sentenced for their part in what Manchester Police described as "disorder of a ferocity and intensity they had never experienced before".

He was jailed for a year and handed a six-year football banning order after pleading guilty to violent disorder at Manchester Crown Court on 20 November this year.

Yesterday, his lawyers told Mr Justice Jack and Judge Martin Stephens, QC, sitting at London's Criminal Appeal Court he was "an exceptionally short man" and did not present an intimidating figure. But the judges rejected his appeal.