sport news MARTIN SAMUEL: Three months inside is not enough for unruly mobsters who attack ... trends now
When district judge Grace Leong was confronted with a teenage drug offender who had coughed in the direction of police officers, she knew exactly what was appropriate. Levi Marsden, 18, from Barnsley, was given a three-month custodial sentence.
Marsden had told the officers she did not have Covid, then she said she did and started coughing aggressively and repeatedly, refusing to cover her mouth and saying: 'I hope you get it.' She told the court she actually had a cold and was a carer for her father but Leong was unmoved.
'The offences are so serious only custody can be justified,' she said. Perhaps Marsden should have gone with a flying headbutt instead. Magistrates seem much more relaxed about those.
Nottingham Forest fan Robert Biggs assaulted Billy Sharp after Forest beat Sheffield United
On Thursday, Leong presided over the case of Robert Biggs, 30, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire, who, having joined the pitch invasion after Nottingham Forest defeated Sheffield United in their play-off semi-final, made a bee-line for striker Billy Sharp and with one blow, knocked him flat and left him needing stitches.
It could have been worse but Biggs did nothing to prevent that. Judge Leong says she even saw him weaving through the crowd to deliberately target Sharp. There was no doubt in her mind that this was not an accidental collision.
Her sentence? Six months. Yet she said immediately that Biggs would only serve half of that. So, in reality, three months. The same as for coughing at two police officers who were not reported by the courts to have contracted Covid.
Biggs, 30, was arrested and has now been jailed for six months but is likely to only serve three
And Marsden sounds a nasty piece of work, like Biggs, but custodial sentences for coughing were the courts' way of stopping the weaponisation of respiratory infection during the pandemic. Largely, it seems to have worked.
Yet pitch invasions, and violence towards players, is also on the rise. What is being done about this? Is it any wonder a man like Patrick Vieira, manager of Crystal Palace, chooses not to wait for the first blow, or for the courts to come to his
