Logicalman makes a great point about the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" underpinning our criminal justice system, which is, I might add, probably the best justice system in the world. The integrity of that system is, with all due respect, far more important than anything that could have happened on Saturday, and cases like those of Carl Beech and Jussie Smollet recently should remind us why it needs to seem harsh and cynical at times.
As it happens, my position is one step down from that insofar as, as I said, I accept that "this" did happen, because I think it highly unlikely that Christie would have completely fabricated the story. However, I think it equally unlikely that a Fulham fan at a match with his wife would physically attack another fan, randomly and without provocation, and that his wife would then support him, and that none of the fans around them would "clump" (as someone put it above) or apprehend him. Therefore, I consider it totally unclear at this stage what "this" involved, ie, what actually happened.
If Christie is a normal person, he won't have challenged his sister's side if the story - just as I wouldn't, if I was him. That's fine, but in my experience, there are two sides to every story, and both sides will exaggerate or omit different elements, quite often unintentionally. Back in the 90s I was accused of saying the n-word in an amateur football match when in fact I said "f*** off will ya". I dread to think what the consequences of that misunderstanding would be if it happened today.
I'm not calling anyone a liar, nor justifying violence or racial abuse, but I'm not going to judge someone with only one side of the story, particularly when that's a vague half-sentence of detail, relayed to me second-hand via Twitter. Sorry but I'm going to do what the Police and any other half-intelligent, responsible and genuinely compassionate person would do, which is wait for the full facts to emerge - which I'm sure they will, very soon.
