Conviction of Michael Shields

The conviction of Liverpool F.C. supporter Michael Shields resulted from the attempted murder of Bulgarian citizen Martin Georgiev on 30 May 2005 with a paving slab in the Black Sea resort of Golden Sands, Bulgaria, following Liverpool F.C.'s 2005 UEFA Champions League win. Shields was arrested and subsequently convicted for the attack. Shields launched two appeals against his conviction amid a high-profile campaign, in 2005 and 2006, but they both failed and the original verdict was affirmed. His prison term was reduced from 15 to 10 years after the second appeal – but with an increase in fine. With parole, he would have been due for release in 2010.

On 9 September 2009 Justice Secretary Jack Straw granted Shields a full Royal Pardon, citing evidence that had only recently been brought to his attention. However, Straw refused to announce details about the new evidence. Shields became the first British citizen to be granted such a pardon after being convicted overseas. The Ministry of Justice of Bulgaria has requested the official documents for the Pardon and the evidence on which it is based from the British government.

According to some witness accounts, a group of around ten Liverpool F.C. football fans, including Shields, engaged in a drunken fracas in the seaside resort in the early hours of the morning. When Georgiev came out of the cafe in which he worked as a barman to investigate, he was knocked down, kicked and punched repeatedly by at least three people. While he was lying on the ground, the questioned witness accounts claim Shields struck him on the head with an object. Shields and three other men, Bradley Thompson, Graham Sankey and Anthony Wilson, were arrested and charged with the attack.

Thompson and Wilson were convicted of lesser offences and given non-custodial sentences. Sankey was released without charge. Back in the UK, he 'confessed' to being the attacker, not Shields; Sankey later retracted his statement. Nine witnesses, both Bulgarian and British, later testified at the trial and many of them — including Georgiev himself — positively identified Shields (in an identity parade and in the court) as a person present at the crime scene and as the perpetrator of the crime.

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