A female football fan faces being the only woman in Britain to be banned from all soccer grounds after she was caught hurling a flare onto the pitch as she watched her team being thrashed at home.
Abbie-Leigh Reay, 23, was arrested after she grabbed the missile and threw it towards the referee after her team Tranmere Rovers went 3-0 down in a crunch League Two fixture against Forest Green Rovers.
As the flare landed on the pitch near referee Lee Swabey and Forest Green goalkeeper Luke McGee, CCTV footage captured Reay as she threw her arms up in celebration.
Police later stopped the Aldi supermarket worker as she was leaving Tranmere's Prenton Park stadium after the team were beaten 4-0 in the top of the table clash. Despite her arrest, Reay posted winking pictures of her at the match with her girlfriend and family along with a laughing emoji and the caption: ''Before it all went downhill.'' One of her comments read: ''Just hope I don't get banned.''
At Sefton magistrates court in Merseyside, Reay, of Bebington near Birkenhead denied a charge of throwing a missile onto a football playing area under the Football (Offences) Act 1991 but she was convicted after a trial. She now a faces a Football Banning Order which could prohibit her from visiting any sports ground in the UK.
The incident on January 29 of this year, occurred just after half time when Forest Green extended their lead and several items could be seen being thrown onto the pitch near McGee at the Kop end of the ground.
Eventually, stewards converged on the crowd to try and apprehend the missile thrower but Reay was seen bending down and then throwing the flare onto the pitch. She then threw her arms up as if in celebration when the missile landed near to where the referee was talking to the goalkeeper. She was stopped by police when leaving the grounds and interviewed later at her home.
A PC patrolling Prenton Park said in a statement: “She did admit throwing the flare. She said she felt it hit her and landed on the floor and then in a kind of panic she has thrown it away. She mentioned that she was just scared and that it was burning near her so she picked it up. She didn't know what to do and her first thought was to throw it away on the pitch.”
Representing herself, Reay, said the flare had been brought by some "lads" behind her and she had thrown it onto the pitch in a ''panic'' to protect her partner Libby Case and brother Joel. She insisted that she was not celebrating when threw her arms in the air.
"We had moved a couple of seats in front of these lads but they rocked down and that's when the flare has come and it was smoking at my feet," she said. "Joel was on one side and my partner was on the other side and the first thing I thought was to get it away.
"I threw it directly onto the football pitch. I then turned around and told the lads to ‘F*** off.’ I've been going to Tranmere all my life and I hate things like this. I literally had nowhere else to put it. It happened so quickly and the next thing I knew I was getting arrested."
Libby told the hearing. "The lads told us that they had flares in their pockets. After half-time the flare ended up on my feet. I am asthmatic, I did not want to be inhaling the smoke, so I just panicked. Abbie panicked and just picked it up and threw it and the police turned up. The lads behind did say it was not her flare."
Referring to how she was seen to speak to her partner and hit her on the arm, Libby added: “I was not happy with her throwing it. I said 'You could have just put it on the floor' but I think she just panicked. She gave the lads a mouthful and I'm not going to repeat what she said. I did say to Abbie, ‘That needs to go now’ but I did not expect her to pick the flare up and throw it on the pitch. I thought she was just going to throw it over the wall."
Reay's elder sister Megan who was also at the match said: "Abbie felt something hit her back. She turned around and saw it was a flare and picked it up. Libby has asthma and she was with Joel so, Abbie threw it on the pitch. She put her arms up and turned to the people behind her as if to say, 'What the f***?'"
But finding Reay guilty District Judge James Hatton told her: "You can be seen to throw the flare onto the path. It's clearly thrown in the direction of the goalkeeper and the referee stood near the goal, presumably because of the disorder on the pitch.
"You have given an account of what happened and there are substantial differences between what you have said and your two witnesses. There are significant levels of inconsistencies between the three accounts. I have looked very carefully at the CCTV. The flare was not smoking prior to you picking it up. There was no hint of panic in either yourself or in Libby Case when you were caught on CCTV.
"You simply picked it up and threw it towards the referee and the goalkeeper. Thereafter you put your arms in what was clearly an act of celebration. There is no other explanation for it. It is extremely clear and I reject your account in its entirety."
Reay will be sentenced in September. At the the time of the incident Tranmere's chairman Mark Palios issued a statement promising that those who threw items on the pitch would be banned from the stadium irrespective of police action.
He said: “We take a zero tolerance approach to these incidents. Tranmere is a family club and we want all spectators to be able to enjoy a game without it being spoiled by the actions of a mindless minority.
''Any person encroaching on the pitch, throwing items on the pitch or doing anything to endanger supporters will be issued with an automatic stadium ban, quite apart from any criminal sanctions that the police may invoke."
