marco said:
[its a fine line trig, if my lad had gone to a match and was sitting in say level 3 watching the game saying nothing he's hardly breaking or threatening to break the peace, missbehaving in a manner likely to cause distress or any other crime however the law likes to dress it up. if say you knocked his glasses into his eye while over reacting to evict him 'you personaly are liable for asault charges, a sterward or security have no more powers than jo blogs making a citizens arest and beleive me the citizens arest situation can backfire and the honest party end up getting sued
You may think it is a fine line but, firstly in your sons case which was a civil case as it hadn't been enforced via the courts, a steward could ask your son to leave the ground if he refused he would then be in breach of Ground regulations (similar to if you are barred from a pub) should he then fail to do so, what normally would happen is that the stewards (we are instructed not to do ejections on our own) would then using reasonable force remove your son. Whilst all this is happening it would be recorded on CCTV and police officers aware and standing by. Having made a reasonable request your son should be willing to comply with the request of the stewards.
There is little chance of your son say having "glasses pushed in his eye" as the law states reasonable force, thus by simply holding on to his arm this is unlikely to happen , however your son if putting up resistance would then make reasonable force that bit stronger. There have been many cases brought, the most recent with the Rag stewards who broke the City fans legs.
this is obviously unacceptable but this is a very rare case and as you state will be correctly punished, but how many times have you seen fans removed by more than one steward with his arms up his back but no case brought against them.
This is simply because the steward is performing his duties within the limits of the duties and laws that allow them to do so.
