Guardian News and Media
London
An amateur footballer has been jailed for a year for breaking an opponent’s leg in an intentional “long jump” tackle.
Nathaniel James Kerr, 27, made the two-footed tackle on an opponent during a Sunday League football match in August 2014. The victim, 30 year-old Stuart Parsons, needed a pin and plate in his ankle after it was broken in two places.
The incident happened moments after Parsons got into an argument with an opposing player in the early stages of the game in Hazel Grove, Stockport.
Parsons had played the ball and from some distance away when Kerr ran towards him, jumped into the air and “like an athlete doing a long jump” brought both feet stamping down on the victim’s outstretched leg.
As Parsons rolled around the ground in pain, Kerr pointed at his teammate and shouted: “I’ve done this because of you!” Justin Hayhoe prosecuting told Manchester’s Minshull Street crown court.
Hayhoe said Kerr also shouted abuse at the victim. He was sent off and the match was abandoned as an air ambulance came to Parsons’ aid.
Parsons was taken to hospital, where he remained for several weeks undergoing extensive reconstructive surgery.
Kerr began his career at Crewe Alexandra and went on to play in the football league for Rotherham United, the Manchester Evening News reported.
The dad-of-one was playing for Longsight pub team when he launched the attack on Parsons, a player for the Emigration pub team, just two minutes into the first game of the AFC Gold Cup season.
In his official report, the referee said he had “never seen such aggression on a football pitch”. But the court heard that once the severity of the injury became clear Kerr did show remorse.
He was arrested several weeks after the incident and charged with Section 18 assault - wounding with intent. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of Section 20 assault, also known as unlawful wounding/inflicting grievous body harm.
Andrew Scott, defending Kerr, said: “He accepts he assaulted Parsons. It is being suggested he went out onto to that field to injure someone, that is simply not the case.
It is a shame that it is because of his actions in a game which has been such an integral part of his life, and which he has grown up loving, that he finds himself in this situation.
“It is with no disrespect to the complainant that I say this has also had a great impact on him.”
However, judge Stuart Driver QC said he had no option but to send Kerr, who has previous convictions for violence, to prison due to the harm inflicted on the victim.
