On Friday, Leeds United fan Aaron Cawley ran onto the field, punched Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper Chris Kirkland and thought he got away with it. Within three days, he was named, shamed and incarcerated.
Cawley will spend the next four months in jail after pleading guilty to charges of assault and entering the field, according to Sky Sports.
Cawley attacked Kirkland during the second half of an English soccer game between two local rivals. It didn’t take long for police, aided by social media users, to catch him as the attack happened in front of a global television audience.
The 21-year-old appeared in court Monday and received swift justice.
“This was not the most difficult police investigation,” prosecutor Paul Macaulay said. “He accepted it was clearly him on TV. He made email contact with South Yorkshire Police and Sky TV.”
Cawley claims to have drunk “several beers and three-quarters of a liter of vodka” on Friday morning. He then took a train from Leeds to Sheffield, where he drank another seven to ten pints of cider.
He attended the Wednesday-Leeds game at Hillsborough, despite being banned from soccer stadiums in his country. The court heard that he could not remember anything that happened after halftime.
Cawley was convicted and given a 16-week sentence. It remains to be seen if the die-hard Leeds fan, turned soccer hooligan, will ever attend another professional soccer game when he gets out.
Click here to watch Cawley’s attack on Kirkland>>
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