A racist football fan has been banned from every football stadium in England and Wales after ripping up pages of the Koran during a match.
Julie Phillips had already been handed a lifetime ban from her beloved Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium as a result of the incident.
The 51-year-old tore pages from the Koran during Boro’s 2-2 draw away to Birmingham last year.
Phillips claims she had no idea the book she was tearing from was the holy book of Islam.
She is the first woman to ever have such a ban imposed in the north east.
A trial in May from Birmingham Crown Court found her guilty of causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress.
She was subsequently banned for life from Middlesborough, but Cleveland Police pushed for further punishment.
The local cops applied to a Teesside court to have her banned from all grounds for three years.
This, according to their case, was only one incident in a history of football-related racism.
Philips was arrested last year at a Middlesbrough game when she racially abused a steward at the match.
While travelling home drunk from another game, she was abusive to British Transport Police and made threats at a separate group of people.
Though she claims that, after supporting the club for 40 years, a lifetime ban is “very harsh”, her employers at Middlesbrough Council consider it enough to terminate her job.