A man has been sentenced at Glasgow Sheriff Court to eight months imprisonment and handed a five year Football Banning Order after admitting posting offensive sectarian messages on a social networking site.
The Banning Order means that as well as the custodial sentence imposed by the court he will be banned from all regulated football matches throughout the whole of the United Kingdom for a period of five years.
The man admitted that between 28th February and 8th March 2011 he posted the messages which were of a threatening, abusive and sectarian nature.
Speaking following the hearing Lesley Thomson QC, the Solicitor General, said:
“The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is absolutely determined to play its part in confronting the problems of sectarianism, religious offences and related disorder and violence.
“Whether the offences are at the football match itself, travelling to or from it, or as in this case online threatening communications, we will do all in our power to bring those who perpetrate such crimes to justice.
“Prosecutors will continue to prosecute anyone indulging in such behaviour which is completely unacceptable in modern Scotland.”
