Newcastle horsepuncher jailed. A lowlife yob, but isn’t this over the top?

Can someone shed more light on the case of the Newcastle horsepuncher?

I am notoriously liberal on penal matters but found the one-year jail sentence a wholly excessive punishment, an example of what I have taken to calling tabloid justice.

It doesn’t mean I have any real sympathy for this unlikeable character. Nor would I if the circumstances been reversed and he was a Mackem laying into the horse.

But leaving aside the risk it could have ended in a more serious incident, we have here a drunken lowlife who punches but does not hurt a police horse. If he deserves a year, the cretins who beat up the Bigg Market will presumably be going inside for life.

Jake identifies a fondness for making mischief
Jake identifies a fondness for making mischief

Here below is the BBC report. I don;t imagine Judge Paul Sloan will be along any time soon to explain the sort of custodial sentence his confreres and consoeurs do not always impose on far greater menaces to society (though I do recall the utterly disproportionate punishments meted out for the most trivial of offences after the riots of 2011).

But if YOU know more about what might justify the sentence, please put me right:

The Newcastle United fan who punched a police horse when trouble flared following his side’s defeat to Sunderland has been jailed for a year.

Barry Rogerson, 45, from Bedlington, Northumberland, squared up to Bud, from West Yorkshire’s mounted section, while wearing a scarf over his face.

Almost 100 Newcastle fans were charged following clashes with police after the game at St James’ Park.

Rogerson pleaded guilty at Newcastle Crown Court to violent disorder.

He was also given a six-year football banning order.

The judge, Judge Paul Sloan QC, said Rogerson had “had plenty of opportunities to move away [from the horse]”.
Bud the horse Police horse Bud was not hurt in the attack

He added: “You stood your ground and attacked the horse by punching it in the head.

“There was a risk of serious injury, the officer could easily have been thrown from the horse and could have sustained serious injury.”

The horse was not hurt in the attack in April.


* see the buildup to the first of this season’s derbies by going to the home page – https://safc.blog – and browsing the display of recent items

Monsieur Salut

34 thoughts on “Newcastle horsepuncher jailed. A lowlife yob, but isn’t this over the top?”

  1. Nephew was caught up in the riot. He’s on CCTV, the judge reviewed this and openly confirmed he didn’t throw anything, hit anyone, threaten anyone, not even chant. He couldn’t walk away the police don’t let you. Judge said he should have walked. 8 months. He was 17 then, he’s just turned 18. He’s in Durham jail (no room anywhere else) banged up 21 hours a day. He’s a real quiet lad banged up with murderers and thugs.The guy before him was 31 he’d never been in trouble 4 kids. He was a real bad-un, joined in some of the chanting – that’s it. That’s what the judge said he was convicted of. 16 months for the breadwinner.
    The riot was appalling but the response has to be proportionate and punish the right people.

  2. Approve? Indeed I do. I’m quite prepared to dole out vitriol and applaud disproportionate punishment for any thick Mag like this. If there was any sense of real justice he would be crocheting horse blankets for his entire spell of porridge.

  3. Spot on Vince. I can even see the point when judicial viciousness targets serious offenders, with or without records.

    But where justice goes wrong is in locking up a kid for stealing a bottle of water, and a young woman who accepted a stolen t-shirt.It happened in 2011.

    And that is what makes a one year jail term for what this idiot did seem, to me and many others, disproportionate.

    Jeremy might approve. I do not

  4. I think historically the law has always come down harder on riot situations,or near riots which this incident took place in.Whether it be balance against non riot situiations we have inherited this tradition.

    Which is wt the London rioters get relatively heavily punished,….warning being that to take part in major civil disorder and you will feel the force of the law…..did the Romans no harm…until they went soft.

    • Yes, this is the kind of ideology the state uses to protect itself……it is currently getting showcased in Syria where civil unrest means its OK to gas, bomb and murder the general populace with impunity just so long as the establishment maintains power and the status quo.

      The weight of the law should however not be disproportionate to the crime, but fairly applied. Whether he be a mag, London rioter, Sweeny Todd or a certain ex-prime minister it should be equally applied. Disproportionate and unfair use of the law is what leads to civil unrest in the first place….just look at our own history and see the origins of the English Civil War. Cromwell won through insurrection which was against the laws of state, did this make him wrong, or did he in fact curtail the excesses of the ruling elite, a benefit which we still enjoy today. Unfortunately we did not quite manage to remove them totally.

      You need only then study what Cromwell did in Ireland to realise that even those who’s original actions were to benefit the common people could also be totally lawless, again just look at Syria for a modern day comparison.

      Misuse of the law is what undermines it, it has to be fair and impartial and not lend itself to being used to the benefit of any one group within society, utopian may be but are we getting any closer to it….No because there is not a will to do so from those that govern.

  5. They should have tied him to the ground on Sunday and let the horse walk all over him. I’ve no time for anyone defending this lout Salut and I’m frankly disappointed in you taking the stance you have on this. He was big enough and stupid enough to punch a poor horse because his team lost. A man well in his 40s should know better. The M***s have turned us over more than a good few times, and it may well happen again this weekend, but I don’t fear for the horses on Wearside.

    • Your disappointment acknowledged. In a perfectly rational debate, no one has suggested he didn’t do wrong or merit punishment. Many of us, however, discern a total lack of proportion in how he was sentenced. You don’t.

  6. as mentiond above, someone got 4 months for punching a policewoman in the face. If I go out tonight and punch somebody in Bishop Market Place (it happens most weeks, so it must be my turn soon)and get caught, I’ll get a fine and maybe some community service. As also mentioned above, the bloke’s a complete tool and will have to suffer being remembered for this for the next forty years

  7. They should have just given him a 12-month Community Service order shovelling shit at the Police Stables. Poetic justice if he subsequently gets a kick in the heed off “Bud.”

    Then again, he could then claim compensation for police (horse) brutality…..oh bugger!

  8. I’m taking a diversion here.

    The horse came from the West Yorkshire police authority, according to the article signposted above. This begs the question as to how many officers and horses came up and how much it cost.

    This, for me at least, begs a second question: would spending that money on training officers to behave less confrontationally when they are under pressure reduce the risk of such incidents?

    I’m mindful of the behaviour of some police at Hillsborough, where I know one swore at a family group including a nine year old boy, of the death of a totally innocent newsvendor in London and the subsequent evasions, of the need for Blackburn fans living in Bolton to travel to Blackburn to get buses back to away derbies.

    I alluded to the police not learning when I wrote a short piece about the Huddersfield/Hull match a year or so ago. How much stadia have changed since the sixties, how little the police have changed.

    Yon horse-puncher was in the wrong, as was the disturbance in the area, but when the police are wrong – and the evidence is incontrovertible that they do get it wrong – the punishment often bears no relation to the crime.

  9. The “As a lesson to others” type sentence might have been expected with the authorities taking this before a judge rather than the magistrates who,I believe, cannot send someone down for a year..

    When “justice” has to set an example with a draconian sentence it isn’t justice— its the establishment getting involved.

    This guy is a victim of an abuse of power and I don’t care if he’s a Mag or a thug he deserves our sympathy.

  10. Has he previous ? Considering that others get suspended sentences for , sometimes with previous convictions , more serious crimes makes this seem a little excessive . That the man is a tool is beyond question and I certainly have no sympathy for him what’s o ever, you make your bed etc. The sentence is similar to some of the sentences handed out in the wake of the riots two years ago , a deterent against mass unrest and a timely reminder to potential tools of either side on Sunday, step out of line and this is what you will get.

  11. After Mongo he must be only the second person in the world to have punched a horse.

    I love the way he claims the horse bolted on him, when it was just walking forward.

    What a complete knob!

    They say he drank and took medication
    Anything, even in conjunction with alcohol, that makes you think that its a good idea to punch a police horse needs a better advertising campaign

    He should not only be banned from football, but possibly from bars too.

  12. This is likely to show the usual divided opinion between the “hangers and floggers” and the “bleeding heart liberals”

    All I will say that in August a man was jailed for punching a policewoman in the face and got 4 months.Apparently a vicious attack in a court room.

    Magistrates have complained today that 50% of violent offenders get off with a caution.

    If this guy’s got no previous convictions then it seems rough justice and I think his place in clink should go to a more deserving miscreant.

    • “Rogerson previously told the BBC he was “not a thug” and was wearing a scarf across his face to stop the cold wind getting into his mouth after a “filling had dropped out”.”

      Really?……worth a 12 month stretch for the least plausible scarf excuse ever offered

  13. The law is not and never has been about justice, its there to protect the establishment and their buddies. An attack on the, and I use this phrase extremely lightly, upholders of the law is an attack on the state and will be suitably punished.

    When the state attacks an individual its normally settled outside of the Courts of Law.

    One rule for them and one rule for the rest.

    • Part of me wants to take issue with you. You paint a simplistic black and white picture.

      That said I remember during the Miner’s strike, the tv overage on all channels would say X policemen have been injured whilst Y miners have been arrested. Never how any miners were injured (and there were plenty) nor how many police should have been arrested.

      That said he punched a horse so f@@k him……We don’t do violence against animals….

      We’re British after all

      • But Neil its all about does the punishment fit the crime. He was pissed, pissed off and has made a dreadfully stupid choice which he will have to bear for life the piss taking he will get. Muderers get out in 15 years.

        The law is there to stop the rest of us getting influence and power the way the establishment got it, through the use of force and violence.

        I am not knocking honest bobbies but the system. Blair Peach, Liddle Towers illegally killed, settled out of court by cash payments, where is the justice in that.

      • Hypothetical: A Prime Minister takes a country to war that has cost thousands of British Army casualties on the untrue pretext of WMD. He systematically either inadvertently (if you are totally stupid) or advertently misleads parliament and the nation to back up his buddies the good old spymasters supreme USA. Said person is now earning millions giving lecture tours in the USA, the Un laughably give him an ambassadors role, no charges are ever brought the war and casualties contine to rise.

        Who out of these two odious characters a horse punching thug or an elected member of parliament are more deserving of a Jail term, both in fact but in reality one gets a jail term that is excessive and the other get more state sponsored goodies showered on him.

      • By the way Neil it was only five lines, I would challenge anyone to produce a comprehensive and expanses polemic in that space.

        You really need to refrain from individual attacks and stick to the discussion topic. Open debate is intelligent trying to gain points by insult and petty inferences is not.

  14. If he actually deserved three months for gratuitous violence to a horse the only way he would serve it under our crazy criminal justice system was to send him down for a year.

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