SUSPENDED SENTENCE FOR CITY MAN WHO CONNED LIVERPOOL FANS

Date Published: 20-Dec-2012

A Liverpool supporter has been given a suspended eighteen-month sentence for duping 26 other fans out of €7,000 by selling them bogus trips to Liverpool which included non-existent tickets to a Liverpool v Chelsea match.

25 year old Jonathan Farrell, an unemployed shop assistant, of 20 Merlin Park Lane, Merlin Park, Galway, was sentenced before Galway Circuit Criminal Court.

Sixteen fans were left stranded at Shannon airport on January 31, 2009, while eight others who had travelled on their own bat to Anfield for the match the next day were left standing in the cold outside the grounds with no tickets.

Farrell had pleaded guilty before Galway Circuit Criminal Court in December 2010 to five sample charges, out of a total of 26 charges, to the theft of varying amounts of money from 26 Liverpool supporters on dates between January 1 and 31, 2009.

He had walked into Galway Garda Station the day before the match and admitted setting up the scam to con fellow Liverpool supporters out of the money.

Farrell said he had gambling debts at the time of €11,000 and needed the money to repay those.