A Liverpool fan who was wrongly convicted of attempted murder has said he isn't angry about what happened to him.
Michael Shields was arrested and jailed after the 2005 Champions League final in Instabul, for a crime he had no involvement in.
The now 33-year-old, from Edge Hill , travelled back through Bulgaria after watching the Reds come back from being 3-0 down at half time to beat AC Milan on penalties.
Michael's group were not the only ones who stayed at the resort and while there, a local man, Martin Georgiev was attacked and left seriously injured.
Michael was one of four men arrested for the attack and was later convicted of attempted murder after being wrongly identified by the victim.
Michael was sentenced to 15 years in priso n, which was later reduced to 10, while the man who once confessed to the attack, Graham Sankey , walked free after flying back to the UK and refusing to co-operate .
A royal pardon was finally granted to Michael four years after he was first jailed and he went home a free man.
Ten years on, he has spoken out on the ordeal and how he feels towards those who wronged him.
Speaking to the Independent , Michael said: "It doesn’t feel like 10 years.
"There are weeks and months when I don’t think about what happened and then something will come on the television about prison.
"I’ll say to my wife, ‘It’s not like that.’ She’ll say. ‘How would you know..? Oh.’”
Michael went on to say that despite a huge campaign to have him released by people on Merseyside, he was pinned as a "monster" in Bulgaria.
He said: "I got letters detailing the support back home but I was on the flip side.
"In Bulgaria I was the villain. When I learnt enough of the language to read the newspapers I’d see myself described as a monster and hooligan.”
Michael said that even being released came with its own challenges.
He said: "I was still 18 in my head. Everyone had moved on apart from me. I got a job by November. I needed it.
"In prison there’s structure and suddenly there wasn’t any. Even now I need regimentation.
"I was moving at 100mph for about a year. I couldn’t sit down and watch the telly.
"I couldn’t settle. My parents wanted me to go and talk to a therapist about the experiences but I was a bit pig-headed.”
Now, a married man with two children, aged four and one, Michael said he is the happiest he has ever been.
He says he still thinks about Georgiev and how "he was the victim".
But Michael added that he holds no anger, and that if he ever saw Graham Sankey again, he would "thank him".
He said: "What would I do if I saw him?
“I’d try to put a positive spin on it. I’d thank him. My life is great now.
"It took this path and it’s worked out well. You don’t want to be angry. There’s no point being angry.”
