A man who sent a “disgusting and offensive” racist message to a professional footballer on social media has been banned from all matches for three years, police have said.
Harry Dunbar, 20, from Fareham, Hampshire, sent racist abuse to Christopher Rech via Instagram following the FA Cup match between Tamworth and Tottenham Hotspur on January 12.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police said Dunbar admitted sending the message after losing a bet when questioned.
Police noted that Rech came on as a substitute for the Tamworth player in the match.
Later, while checking his Instagram, he discovered that he had received a message from an unfamiliar account called “Dunztagram”.
Shocked, he posted a screenshot of the message with the username and then shared it on social media.
“After such an amazing day, this is the last thing I expected to see when I opened Instagram,” he wrote in his post.
“Still, thanks for all the support today. The fans were incredible.”
The post has received more than 1.7 million views, and other users who recognized the account owner as Dunbar contacted Reh and sent him private messages.
Rech passed this information to the Directorate of Football (DFO) for Tamworth at Staffordshire Police, who then passed it on to the UK Police Football Unit and the specialist football unit at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police.
Dunbar, from Whiteley, was arrested on suspicion of sending racially offensive messages and his phone was seized.
Although the Instagram account was deleted, it was found to belong to Dunbar.
In an interview, he admitted that he sent the message because he lost a bet.
Dunbar was sentenced at Portsmouth Magistrates' Court on Wednesday to a three-year ban from football, 12 months' community service totalling 200 hours and 10 days of rehabilitation activity.
Superintendent Adrian Hall, head of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police task force, said: “Simply because Christopher Re is a footballer, Dunbar felt he had the right to send him a stream of racist abuse.
“No one should be subjected to such disgusting and brutal violence, no matter what they do for a living.
“I am completely appalled by Dunbar's racist comments but am immensely grateful to Christopher Re for his courage in standing up to this appalling violence and for assisting the police investigation.
“Thanks to Christopher, this man will not be able to attend football matches and that is an important outcome of this case as racism has no place in football stadiums or in society at large.”
The football ban means Dunbar, from John Bunyan Close, will be banned from all football stadiums in the country and will not be able to travel abroad for international matches for three years.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
