Three Celtic fans have lost their bids to have their convictions for wearing pro-IRA t-shirts at a powderkeg football match overturned.
Martin MacAulay, Daniel Ward and Ryan Walker attended a Celtic v Linfield match with shirts emblazoned with a head wearing a black beret, sunglasses and a camouflage scarf covering the mouth.
The flag of the Republic of Ireland was also featured in the background.
Police officers at the July 2017 Champions League qualifier believed the image to have paramilitary links to the IRA and arrested the trio.
The constables were concerned because of trouble at the previous leg between the sides.
Linfield, who are based in Belfast, have a predominantly Protestant support and Hoops ace Leigh Griffiths was struck with a Buckfast bottle during the previous leg
They arrested the three men who were standing in area of Parkhead where members of Celtic FC’s ultras supporters group the Green Brigade stand.
The men were detained after Celtic fans unfurled banners showing the same images which were on the T shirts. A court heard how the banners “provoked an immediate and hostile reaction from some of the Linfield supporters”
They went on trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court in February where they denied committing a breach of the peace at the game in July 2017.
Prosecutors claimed they conducted themselves in a disorderly manner by attending the match wearing a shirt which displayed an image of a figure related to and in support of a “prescribed terrorist organisation namely The Irish Republican Army”.
The trio were convicted. However, they won a bid to have their convictions quashed following proceedings at the Sheriff Appeal Court in Edinburgh.
The appeal sheriffs ruled that the that prosecutors needed to corroborate why the image on the T-shirts supported the IRA.
Sheriff Principal Craig Turnbull, sitting alongside Sheriff Principal Duncan Murray and Sheriff Norman Ross decided that the Crown failed to do that.
This prompted prosecution lawyers to go to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh. Advocate depute Ashley Edwards QC told the court that the images on the t-shirts were so obviously representative of the IRA that the Crown didn’t need to corroborate it.
In a judgment issued on Tuesday, judges Lord Carloway, Lord Woolman and Lord Matthews agreed with Crown submissions and ordered the reinstatement of the convictions.
Lord Matthews wrote: “The image in this case, which the appellants were proved to have been displaying, consists of the Irish tricolour upon which is superimposed a representation of a man in military garb, wearing a beret and sunglasses.
“All well informed persons know that this is a depiction of a member of a proscribed Irish republican terrorist group such as the IRA or similar organisations.
“There is no need to prove this by “expert” evidence. Any attempt either to confirm or contradict that fact was at best superfluous.
“It was not necessary for evidence about the latter to have been led before a Glasgow sheriff.
“It did not require any degree of expertise to be able to conclude that the figure shown on the T-shirt was a paramilitary figure associated with the Republic of Ireland, given the presence of the tricolour.
“Even without any formal evidence that the figure represented a member of the IRA, the sheriff would have been entitled to find that the wearing of the T-shirts was designed to antagonise the Linfield supporters and amounted to a breach of the peace.
“The reference to the IRA was merely narrative. The sheriff was entitled to look at the image and come to the view that it depicted a member of a terrorist organisation affiliated to Irish independence.
“In these circumstances it is concerning that a summary trial, which primarily involved readily ascertainable and undisputable facts, took several days to resolve.”
During proceedings at Glasgow Sheriff Court, Police Scotland constables Samantha Stirling and Karen Taylor told the court they believed the image to have paramilitary connotations.
PC Simon Nixon, from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said the image was clearly intended to depict an IRA soldier in paramilitary clothing.
However, the appeal court overturned the decision of their junior colleagues.
Lord Matthews wrote: “In the particular circumstances which pertained in this case, we would have regarded the wearing of a T-shirt which depicts an image in support of a proscribed organisation, such as the IRA, as so flagrant that the necessary inference could be drawn from it, in the absence of evidence of alarm or annoyance.
“It is difficult but to conclude that the wearing of such T-shirts amounted to a deliberately provocative gesture directed towards the Linfield support.”
