3 December 1998 Edition

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The strange case of Thomas Longstaff

By Fern Lane

A legal case involving sport, sectarianism and a stabbing in which a young Celtic fan almost lost his life came to a conclusion last week when Rangers supporter Thomas Longstaff was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment.

A year ago Celtic fan Sean O'Connor was attacked as he left Celtic Park after a game. What followed was a series of bizarre and suspicious twists in the case before justice was finally done.

At the time of the incident in November 1997 the Glasgow police did not take witness statements from the dozens of people at the scene of the attack and officers arriving immediately afterwards refused to help Sean to hospital - he was bleeding profusely from the gash in his neck. Then the force, right up until the verdict, denied in the local press that the attack had been motivated by sectarianism.

After an anonymous tip-off from someone who heard Longstaff boasting about the attack, the police arrested him and charged him with attempted murder. But then they informed Sean that they would not be proceeding with the case because one witness who was with Sean at the time, Patrick Keenan, could not be located. Still no other witnesses were approached.

Bizarrely, they then took Longstaff into protective custody - because of a non-existent IRA threat against him - where he remained for almost a year. The police suggested to Sean and his solicitor that that was essentially the end of the matter.

However, some weeks ago Patrick Keenan reappeared in Glasgow, and Sean was given just two days' notice by the authorities that Longstaff would, after all, stand trial.

Longstaff was defended by Donald Findlay QC, Deputy Chairman of Rangers and senior Orange Order official in West Scotland.

As Sean sat in the public gallery after having given evidence, the father of the notorious sectarian murderer Jason Campbell, who himself has a previous UVF conviction, came and sat silently beside him as the court heard that Campbell and Longstaff were in fact close friends.

Findlay also defended Campbell at his trial for the murder of a Catholic and he asked the judge in this case to move the trial outside Glasgow so that the jury ``would not connect the two cases''.

Sean, who had travelled from the south of England and could not stay to hear the verdict, approached a court police officer to ask for a telephone number where he could ring to find out the verdict. The officer duly wrote down a number for him. The following day Sean rang the number and was greeted with a recorded message giving him information on Rangers' recent result and forthcoming fixtures.

The number was that of Rangers `Club Call'.

The experience has left a sour taste for Sean rather than the relief he should have felt on seeing the man who tried to murder him locked up. Indeed, he says the trial has left him more shaken than the attack itself. He says; ``Of course, I always knew there was a lot of UVF support and sectarianism in Glasgow, particularly around Rangers, but I know now that I really didn't realise just how deep it goes. Up until the trial I would still have felt OK walking around Glasgow in my Celtic shirt, but that's changed now; I won't do it so easily after this experience.''

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