Five Chelsea fans allegedly involved in racist chanting and preventing a black man from boarding a train in Paris are to fight against the imposition of football banning orders on them.
They appeared at Waltham Forest magistrates court, east London, as district judge Mary Connolly adjourned the hearings on being informed they would be contesting the orders applied for by the Metropolitan police.
The hearing followed the broadcast of video footage obtained by the Guardian which showed Souleymane S, a father of three, trying to get on a Métro carriage but being pushed off at Richelieu-Drouot station on 17 February before a Champions League match in which Chelsea drew 1-1 with Paris Saint-Germain.
Josh Parsons, 20, a former public schoolboy from Dorking, Surrey, and Richard Barklie, 50, a former police officer from Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, appeared with Dean Callis, 32, of Islington, north London, Jordan Munday, 20, from Sidcup, south-east London, and William Simpson, 26, from Ashford, Surrey.
The orders have been applied for under the Football Disorder Act, and if the case against the five is proved they face a ban on attending football matches of between three and five years, and the surrender of their passports.
Adjourning the case until July, the judge said the orders would involve severe restrictions to civil liberties. They are designed as a preventive measure to stop potential troublemakers from travelling to football matches at home and abroad.
In a statement outside the court, the legal team for Munday stressed there were “no criminal allegations” against him. It said: “He adamantly denies being involved in any racist chanting and there is no evidence that he was.
“We question why the Metropolitan police has chosen to become involved in an incident which occurred in another European country, and only after the football fans have returned to the UK, particularly in view of the fact we are aware that football officers from the Metropolitan police were on the Métro train in question.
“Munday now faces a football banning order application which he intends to contest. The effects of a civil football banning order are very draconian, including restricting a person’s movements for the duration of the football banning order which can last between three and five years.”
Parsons, who attended Millfield school in Street, Somerset, works for the Business and Commercial Finance Club in Mayfair, central London, and has been photographed sharing a pint with the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage.
Barklie is an ex-Royal Ulster Constabulary officer and a former officer with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. A statement by his lawyers last month insisted he was not a racist, and said he did not participate in racist chanting and singing.
The five sat in a packed court, each of them separately represented, as Ian Rees Phillips, for the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, said a DVD of the Paris incident would be submitted alongside evidence of other alleged previous incidents.
Discussing the alleged racism, Souleymane, 33, a French-Mauritanian born in Paris, later told France’s Le Parisien newspaper: “These people, these English fans ... should be locked up.”
He said he had not understood what the fans were saying but knew he was being targeted because of the colour of his skin.
Souleymane said he had not known the incident was filmed by a British passenger on the station platform, and had not told anybody about it, saying: “What could I tell my children? That daddy was shoved around on the Métro because he is black?”
He has since said his children have been left “traumatised” by the reports of what happened, and that he has become depressed. He rejected an offer by the club of a VIP package to visit Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium.
David Cameron said at the time that there is “no place for racism in football”. After the footage emerged, Chelsea condemned the behaviour as “abhorrent” and said they had received substantial information following a witness appeal.
