Newcastle’s forward player, 21 years old Nile Ranger, has been convicted of physically assaulting two police officers by a city court here in Newcastle. He has been given a 12 months conditional discharge along with £750 as compensational amount to each police officer. Conditional discharge means he will not be punished unless he commits another crime during next 12 months’ period. The case happened in 27th August last year in early hours in Newcastle when Ranger has had an argument over an issue with two civilians. He then punched these individuals and fled away. Later, when he was caught by the police, he pushed them too not once but twice that caused these police officers some minor injuries. During the prosecution, his lawyer put a defensive argument that those two individuals were taunting him racially; hence he had to punch them and get away. However, CCTV’s recordings helped in tracing him. A Newcastle Crown Court heard all the arguments from both sides and passed his judgment after being convinced by his racial defense.
John Evans, the judge, said in his judgment, “The picture that the court is presented with is very different to that which was first contemplated. The prosecution have had the opportunity of considering the CCTV footage and it shows a different picture to what was first understood. I cannot know what happened that night; only those involved know that. After the confrontation, you delivered two pushes to the police officers, who suffered limited injuries.”
Ranger later tweeted and said, “(it) was a good weight off my shoulders.”
His solicitor also tweeted and said, “He was subjected to verbal abuse by members of an extremely drunk group of men. The verbal abuse turned into racial abuse and he was then physically attacked. He struck one blow to each of the two white males who attacked him and he then took to his heels and ran away. He was approached by police officers shortly afterwards. He struggled with them when he should not have done as he was in a state of panic at the time they approached him.”
“He apologises for this conduct towards the officers,” he further added.
For now, the case has been concluded and written off by the police, and it’s now upto Ranger not to involve any such activity again during next 12 months else he will have to defense a first rated criminal case against him.