Fan jailed for six months after '˜touching' Rangers players

A Rangers fan who alarmed several of the club's players by 'touching' them on their bodies has been jailed for six months.

Rangers players celebrate after the 3-0 win in Perth. Picture: SNS

Junior Redmond was also banned from all football for 30 months after a court heard he had locked several Rangers players in a drunken embrace.

Perth Sheriff Court was told that Redmond had caused “alarm and annoyance” to eight players at the end of their 3-0 SPFL win over St Johnstone.

Redmond ran on to the pitch at McDiarmid Park in Perth after his team won the match and shook hands with or embraced almost every one of the Rangers players.

Sheriff Lindsay Foulis noted Redmond had a long criminal record and told him his behaviour would have concerned the players involved and could have incited opposition fans.

He said: “Your involvement commences with your invasion of the pitch which could have incited opposing fans to behave in a disorderly manner.

“I am quite sure professional footballers do not appreciate supporters running onto the pitch to embrace them and shake their hands.

“Thereafter, once you were lifted you continued with this disorderly behaviour by shouting and swearing.”

He banned Redmond from all football in the UK or abroad featuring professional clubs from any of the leagues in Scotland, Wales and England, as well as from international matches.

Redmond admitted that during the match between St Johnstone and Rangers on 13 October he conducted himself in a disorderly manner and ran on to the field of play.

He admitted breaching the peace by “approaching several professional players on the pitch and touching several of them on the body” before shouting and swearing at stewards and police officers.

Redmond, 25, Haghill, Glasgow, had been in the South Stand but left his seat at the end of the match and ran on to the pitch.

He then ran up to the Rangers players as they left the pitch and “shook hands and embraced them”. The police said the players were “alarmed and annoyed” by Redmond’s actions.

After touching eight players he was captured by stewards and taken to the exit of the stadium but he began to have a heated argument with them.

Security footage of the incident was reviewed and Redmond was found to have spent almost a minute approaching players as they entered the tunnel after their 3-0 win.

Redmond - who has 20 previous convictions for a variety of crimes - was arrested by police and they discovered there were outstanding warrants for his arrest over unpaid court fines.

He was allowed to phone his friend and fellow Rangers supporter Ryan Galloway to ask if he could pay the fines off for him and he arrived on the scene outside the stadium.

When Galloway saw that the police had his friend pinned to the ground in handcuffs he ran over and started hurling foul-mouthed abuse at them.

Galloway, 32, from Glasgow, admitted behaving in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause fear or alarm by acting aggressively and shouting and swearing at police officers.

Galloway was ordered to carry out 200 hours unpaid work. He was not made subject to a football banning order as the sheriff ruled his offence was not directly related to the match.