Liverpool Players supporting Michael Shields

[StGallsGAA]

I think the Liverpool players are unwise at getting involved in this.   *IF* Shields is completely innocent, why don't the UK authorities prosecute his friend/accomplice for a crime commited overseas and put him in jail?    If justice were then seen to be served by the Bulgarian authorities they might allow Shields early release.   Can't see the Bulgarians agreeing to let him out unless the UK do something about the bloke who has openly admitted/boasted attempted murder of one of it's citizens.

Can you imagine if ia crowd of Sofia holigans who came to Liverpool and nearly killed a barman and then the players wore t-shirts demanding that the convicted man be freed?   The brits would go apoplectic!

[Hound]

He's in a UK jail now. The Brits paid £90,000 to the Bulgars for his transfer...

But there's still a questionmark over whether the Brits can release him without approval from the Bulgarians. There's some kind of review going to take place I think.

[Minder]

A judicial review hearing is to begin today. Justice Secretary Jack Straw does not have the authority to grant him early release.

[corn02]

The mosiac the other night was first class. You do know someone has admitted to doing this yeah?

[Norf Tyrone]

Fair play to Lpool for stiacking by this lad....

...but I am sure Robbie Fowler is feeling a tad picked on.

[magpie seanie]

The mosiac the other night was first class. You do know someone has admitted to doing this yeah?

Another Liverpool fan admitted he did it but did he not subsequently retract?

[corn02]

The mosiac the other night was first class. You do know someone has admitted to doing this yeah?

Another Liverpool fan admitted he did it but did he not subsequently retract?

To be honest there has been so many twists and turns you are probably right. I think the boy is called shanks or something. There is just something odd about the whole thing i.e the police forcing hi to change into a cream top.

The end of the day, a waiter suffered, but reading what I have read I believe Shields is innocent.

[The Real Laoislad]

Is there evidence that can prove beyond reasonable doubt that this guy is innocent?
To be honest I had never heard of this case until the game last Monday night so I'm not well up on the facts,though I am a  believer that there is never smoke without fire

[nifan]

though I am a  believer that there is never smoke without fire

Very very dangerous assumption!
Theres been plenty killed in NI where people have claimed, wrongly, they where in such and such an organization.

[The Real Laoislad]

though I am a  believer that there is never smoke without fire

Very very dangerous assumption!
Theres been plenty killed in NI where people have claimed, wrongly, they where in such and such an organization.

Not quite the same thing nifan.
I meant there must be a reason he was held in the first place though as I said I don't know anything about the case,thats why I asked is there evidence that prove beyond reasonable doubt that this guy is innocent...?

[GalwayBayBoy]

The mosiac the other night was first class. You do know someone has admitted to doing this yeah?

Another Liverpool fan admitted he did it but did he not subsequently retract?

To be honest there has been so many twists and turns you are probably right. I think the boy is called shanks or something.

Graham Sankey fled the hotel in Bulgaria that night and later made a confession that he hit the Bulgarian lad. He then retracted the confession and is on the run now. He left Liverpool anyway.

Sankey and Shields didn't know each other. They were in different groups at the resort. Sankey is not even a Liverpool fan apparently. He's an Evertonian but went for the piss-up with some of his Liverpool supporting mates.  

ITV aired a documentary on the case there about a year ago.

[Rav67]

though I am a  believer that there is never smoke without fire

Very very dangerous assumption!
Theres been plenty killed in NI where people have claimed, wrongly, they where in such and such an organization.

Not quite the same thing nifan.
I meant there must be a reason he was held in the first place though as I said I don't know anything about the case,thats why I asked is there evidence that prove beyond reasonable doubt that this guy is innocent...?

I assume LL is taking the piss here to make his point, and can't imagine any Liverpool fan would not have heard about Shields' case before anyway.

The Bulgarian government have said that if Britain decide to release him they won't kick up a fuss, I think they've realised what a shambles his arrest and conviction was.  I think it's a disgrace that Jack Straw and Britain are so afraid of offending another country that they won't release a citizen of their own who is clearly innocent.

[An Fear Rua]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1495692/Innocent-gentle-giant-Or-remorseless-thug-guilty-of-attempted-murder.html





Innocent, gentle giant? Or remorseless thug guilty of attempted murder?


There are posters all across Liverpool plastered on community centres, shops and pubs, peeking out from sitting-room windows up and down the grimy terraced streets. "Innocent", shouts the bold lettering above a photograph of puppy-faced Michael Shields. "This young man is being accused of a crime he did not commit," insist the posters, published by his family. "Please come forward and help."


Since this emotive appeal was printed more than a month ago, Shields, an 18-year-old engineering student from Liverpool's Edge Hill area, has been convicted by a court in Bulgaria of attempting to murder a local fish-and-chip shop worker. Shields, an ardent Liverpool FC fan who was staying in Bulgaria with friends after watching his team win the European Cup in Istanbul, is said to have smashed a paving slab into the head of Martin Georgiev during a drunken fracas at the Black Sea resort of Golden Sands. Mr Georgiev, who suffered significant brain damage after his skull was broken open during the attack, is now unable to work. The court sentenced Shields to 15 years in prison.

In answer to the posters, someone did indeed come forward to help, but to no avail. It was announced during the trial that Graham Sankey, a fellow Liverpool FC fan and apparently a stranger to Shields, had confessed in writing to being the real culprit behind the attack. However, after examining the confession, made on condition that Mr Sankey would not have to stand trial himself, prosecutors decided that he was responsible for assaulting someone else. The refusal of the Bulgarian authorities to take heed of Mr Sankey's admission has sent Liverpudlians into anger overdrive and in the process brought Shields's plight to national attention. His family has begun a yellow ribbon campaign and called on the Government to intervene to save their son.


Their cause has won many supporters. Liverpool footballers have pledged to back Shields - one player, Jamie Carragher, even dedicated his first goal of the season to the teenager - while local businesses have undertaken to boycott Bulgarian goods.

The blanket criticism of Bulgaria's judicial system has infuriated authorities in the Eastern European state and the gathering storm around the case is now threatening to turn it into an international incident. But has Shields indeed been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, or is he a guilty man?

One aspect of the case is not in dispute, and that is what happened to Mr Georgiev, a 25-year-old father of two young children, who on the night of Sunday, May 29, was at work in the Big Ben fish-and-chip shop at the resort. By the early hours of the next morning, the area was bustling with revellers, many of them drunken Liverpool supporters who had returned from their team's historic victory in Istanbul. Among them was Anthony Wilson, 18, who entered the restaurant at about 5am, visibly drunk, and ordered a hot dog and beer.

After first refusing to pay, he sat down and began exchanging insults with two English couples sitting nearby. Wilson's friend, Bradley Thompson, 19, grabbed his drunken compatriot and pulled him away, throwing a few choice epithets over his shoulder for good measure. One of the English men chased after them, but when Wilson and Thompson responded by pelting him with bottles he then returned to arm himself with a couple of improvised missiles from the drinks cabinet in the fish-and-chip shop.

Mr Georgiev went outside to try to calm the situation. He told the court that the last thing he remembers seeing was a fair-haired man wearing a white shirt, whom he later identified as Shields, run up and punch him in the face. Wilson, Thompson and, apparently, Shields, then set about teaching Mr Georgiev a lesson in what English teenagers abroad are wont to do when drunk: adminstering vicious beatings.

Three Bulgarian witnesses told the court that they saw Shields pick up an 8lb paving slab and bring it down on Mr Georgiev's head, while Wilson and Thompson laid into him with hefty kicks. Daniela Krumova, a waitress working at Big Ben's, identified Shields as the person who hit Mr Georgiev with the slab. "He was like mad," she said, "out of control."

According to Ms Krumova, Shields held the slab with both hands above his head and threw it at Mr Georgiev's head with all his might. The strength of the impact was such that the stone bounced off the victim's head.

Danail Yordanov, also working at Big Ben's, recognised Shields as the person who hit Mr Georgiev with the slab. However, he said that he had not seen Shields's face from the front but only in profile.

Vassil Todorov, who was in Big Ben's at the time of the incident, told the court that he saw Shields taking part in the fight. "He was standing over Martin Georgiev and had foam coming out of his mouth," he said.

After the attack, the police were called and told by Mr Todorov that an Englishman at the scene had said the assailants were staying at the Kristal hotel. The next morning a number of English fans, including those staying at the hotel, were rounded up by the police. Shields was among them, as were his friends Kieron Dunne, 20, and John Unsworth, 21. All three had been sharing room 419. Room 421 next door had been occupied by Wilson and Thompson, who were friends of Mr Sankey, until both had been evicted by the hotel management earlier for disturbing other guests. The two groups had become friendly and had spent previous mornings on their neighbouring balconies comparing notes from the night's revelries.

This morning was different, however. Their passports seized by the police, Mr Dunne, Mr Unsworth and Shields were asked to don white shirts and take part in an identity parade. None had been wearing a white shirt the night before, although Shields's was cream-coloured.

Another man who was detained, although only briefly, was Mr Sankey, a 20-year-old electrician. Since he had dark hair and did not fit the description given to the police he was allowed to go free.

Shields was not so lucky. He was repeatedly picked out by witnesses in identity parades, taken off for further questioning and later charged with the attack on Mr Georgiev. His friends, meanwhile, caught their flight back to Britain in the expectation, they said later, that Shields would be released and follow on a later plane.

Within days, Shields's parents, Maria and Michael, were protesting their son's innocence to the media and making much noise about the "intolerable" conditions in which he was being detained. They insisted the teenager was a "gentle giant" who would never hurt anyone; there must have been some kind of mistake.

The Shields family mobilised their son's friends to return to Bulgaria and give evidence. Central to Shields's defence was his claim, backed up by Mr Dunne, Mr Unsworth and others, that he had been tucked up in bed by 3am on the morning of May 30 and therefore could not have carried out the attack, which was said to have happened about two hours later.

By early July, friends of the Shields family were also already pointing fingers at Mr Sankey as the "real culprit" - a charge that he emphatically denied. The trial was set for July 21, with Wilson also due to face charges of hooliganism and possession of cannabis.

Significantly, Thompson, who had also been charged with hooliganism, had already made a confession, for which he had received a six-month suspended sentence, after confirming that he had attacked Mr Georgiev together with Wilson and Shields. However, when the trial began and Thompson was called to give evidence, he gave a highly contradictory and muddled account of events.

In front of two judges and three jury members, Thompson said he did not know Shields, despite the fact that he had stayed in a room next to his at the hotel. Backtracking on his own confession, he said that he had only seen the fight from far away and ran off after a brick was thrown at someone's head by someone with "brownish hair" whom he did not know. In so testifying, he had effectively ruled out Mr Sankey as the culprit, since he was someone whom he knew well.

As the other defence witnesses trooped in to give evidence regarding Shields's whereabouts at 3am, it became obvious that a surprisingly large number of his friends had seen him peacefully asleep at that time - even those who were not staying in the same room. All sorts of reasons were given for their having stumbled into the apparently unlocked room where they had, they said, seen his prone form before retreating. One had gone to the room thinking that there might be a party there, only to be disappointed to find every-one was tucked up in bed, while another had dropped by to retrieve his mobile telephone, and so on.

One defence witness, Paul Graney, pointed the finger at Mr Sankey, although his testimony was anything but conclusive. Mr Graney said: "He never said that he did not hit anybody, but neither had he said he did hit somebody." Both Graney and Shields had denied being related, but eventually Shields was forced to admit that they were "kind of cousins".

Then came the bombshell that catapulted the case into the headlines: from the safety of Britain, Mr Sankey issued a confession via his solicitor that he was indeed the man who had nearly killed Mr Georgiev. Mr Sankey was not, however, prepared to stand trial. His expectation seemed to be that Shields would now be set free and the matter forgotten about.

The defence, naturally, seized upon the admission. But the court's judges seemed less impressed, prompting intercontinental outcries of incredulity. What nobody seemed to ask was why the court should accept a confession that ran counter to all the known facts of the case. In his statement, Mr Sankey claimed that: "I saw three men running at me with bottles and bricks in their hands. I panicked and stupidly picked up a brick and threw it in the direction of the men running towards me. I saw the brick hit one of them. I panicked and I turned and ran away and returned to the hotel."

How Mr Sankey could be so certain that the man he had injured was Mr Georgiev was puzzling. Certainly the Bulgarian's injuries, which included having a three-inch section of his skull staved out with something far more substantial than a lofted brick, were inconsistent with Mr Sankey's account.

The prosecution witnesses saw a man, whom they believed was Shields, smash a paving slab on Mr Georgiev's head. Even if they had mistakenly identified Shields, Mr Sankey's version was not in keeping with their accounts.

Last week, Mr Sankey and Thompson were unavailable for comment. Wilson, who was given a suspended sentence for his role in the attack, is still in Bulgaria. Others were keen, however, to keep the pressure up for Shields to be released. Mr Unsworth, an apprentice pipefitter who had been rounded up by police at the Kristal hotel, dismissed the inconsistencies in Mr Sankey's confession. "Sankey is just saying that he threw a brick, but I spoke to a lad who was there and he saw him smash the brick on the guy's head," he said.

And why had Mr Sankey suddenly confessed? Mr Unsworth shrugged. "Probably he thought it would not go this far, and then when it did his conscience got the better of him."

Whatever the truth, the case is an unedifying one and reflects poorly on Liverpool's football supporters. Mr Unsworth summed up the unsavoury feeling about the whole affair. He sympathised with his friend left in prison, he said, but had little pity for Mr Georgiev. "I felt sorry for him at first, but by insisting it was Michael that attacked him he is just trying to get his compensation money. Anyway, he only came out of the fish-and-chip shop to help out the Germans who were out there."

[StGallsGAA]

I think it's a disgrace that Jack Straw and Britain are so afraid of offending another country that they won't release a citizen of their own who is clearly innocent.

Having read the article above I d/k how you can say he is "clearly innocent". 

All this guy Sanky has seemingly admitted to was thowing a brick at a crowd of people running who were running at him with bottles.   This does not even come close to the story of the 3 witnesses who said the culprit (whom they identified as Shields) threw a paving slab, not a brick on the mans head as he lay on the floor. 

Mistaken identity may be a possible defence but most telling is the tenstimony of this guy Thompson who as admitted the charge of hooliganism and said that he & Shileds attacked the waiter together.   Why would he say that if Shields was in bed?

Finally this there's fella Graney who was Shields's witness who said he saw Sankey throw the the slab. Shields denied being related to Graney and then later admitted they were cousins.

If this all points to "clearly innocent" then Mark Chapman probably didn't kill John Lennon either.

[corn02]

That is quite a one-sided article with underlying tones that Shields is guilty. There have been plenty of articles hinting that he is purely innocent.