Fleetwood CEO

I think this is the bloke whos made a statement here
https://www.irishexaminer.com/break...lp-with-joey-barton-investigation-917621.html

 

“It’s disappointing and it comes on the back of a number of challenges which have come to the surface for football to deal with.”

Wonder what this is referring to, violence in general, or something more specific what with the recent horrific examples of racism within the game? Sincerely hope the attack was not in any way racially motivated, that would be beyond awful.

 

He said the tunnel is under the duristiction of the referee . Does that mean its another Chris Morgan scenario , that a player or in this case a manager has openly assaulted someone but there's nothing the police can do because it happened " on the field of play " ?

 

No, what it means is that the FA will do FA about it because the referee did not see it

 

Just because the incident took place in an area under FA jurisdiction doesn't mean it isn't a crime. Any comparisons with the Morgan incident are plain daft.

 

But that implies that if one player stabbed another to death in the tunnel or on the pitch there would be no murder charge.

And that is not the case.

 

Agreed. I’d be extremely surprised if he wasn’t charged with assault

 

The police did get involved they stopped him leaving and are investigating.

 

I can see peoples confidence in the FA, EFL and Football authorities is low in terms of doing the right thing here. However this is a police matter too. Problem is our confidence in the police and justice system doing the right thing is also low.

 

So the police stop Barton from leaving , but don't bother to arrest him ? Sounds like a legal grey area to me . I'm sure if I punched someone in the face at a football match , with witnesses present I'd be arrested within seconds .

 

Can't explain why they didn't arrest him. The fact it took place in a football stadium is neither here nor there.

 

It’s an assault, plain and simple. If it had been on Wellington Street at 1am this morning he’d have been arrested. There are witnesses and film footage too apparently. He has to be charged and will surely be looking at a custodial sentence.

 

Why try and leave by car and that quick if you haven't done anything wrong? He's surely guilty by that alone !

 

If such an incident took place in any town centre, the suspect would be arrested.. Shirley..?

 

I think it is probably more to do with the fact that they know who he is & where he works (without having to check). For your average Joe, they have to confirm details which is why I presume they get locked up while details are investigated.

 

The very least that FTFC should do is to suspend Barton from duty until the matter has been clarified. That's the very least and it should have been done straight away. Suspension is a neutral action and does not infer blame, but allows the various authorities to investigate before further action/no action is taken.

 

I would expect this to be done tomorrow. Surely he can't run a training session post match, with this hanging over his head? If he does it would tell you a lot about Fleetwood's owner's morals, or the lack of them.

 

Bang on. If I butted a Fleetwood fan on the way out of the ground I'd have spent most of last night locked up and probley be banned from attending games. Going on that and the brum fan getting jail for hitting grealish Barton should get time. I can't understand why he wasn't arrested at the time.

 

Good point. He may well do time, but they know where to find him and he's not a flight risk, so there's presumably no real point in locking him up until it's been investigated.

 

Yes you would because your identity wouldn't be obviously verifiable to the cops. Police have to satisfy at least one of a number of possible criteria to convince a custody officer that the arrest is NECESSARY. The common one used is that the arrest is necessary for a prompt and effective investigation - evidence would be lost by not arresting immediately. In this case the police are certain of Barton's identity, they know he has substantial ties to the 'area' in terms of employment. They may be aware that the primary evidence is on CCTV. Is anything going to be hampered by interviewing Barton under caurion by appointment when convenient for the police who will know their resources at that time. By that time they should have an evidential victim statement, medical evidence of the ijuries caused and CCTV evidence in evidential format to confront Barton with at interview.
If he'd been arrested at the time, he would have to be bailed anyway as Standel was unfit to give statement and evidence not yet available.
Personally, I'd have argued that I needed to get Barton seen by a police FME to note any injuries to him - knuckle or forehead marks for example. If there are counter allegations it's important to have an independent note of any injuries apparent to Barton. However, if he agreed to do that voluntarily in the right timeframe I'd be struggling.
It helps to know all the constraints that the police are under. Take it from me, the coppers' instinct is to nick whenever justifiable - unless you're going to leave your colleagues dangerously short on patrol.