Departures Screened For Soccer Thugs

Metropolitan police 'spotting teams' are at London airports this week preventing troublemakers from even reaching the World Cup.

Teams of experienced Football Intelligence officers are at Heathrow and LondonCity airports where they have been since Monday, checking travellers heading to South Africa for the football.

The uniformed officers, who are often present at football matches to identify and disrupt known football hooligans, are patrolling in terminals.

They will be stopping and talking to people who are flying out to South Africa by using simple checks to sift out any potential trouble makers.

So far officers have issued three notices to people preventing them from travelling to South Africa, two of whom have already appeared before the courts and have been given three-year football banning orders.

This ongoing ports operation follows on from last week's passport surrender. Out of 220 people that have to hand in their passports, only 25 have failed to surrender them.

Officers from the Met's Territorial Support Group carrying out early morning door-knocks, have already arrested 11 people and eight have been charged with breaching their banning order.

Commander Bob Broadhurst, head of the Met's Public Order Branch, said: "We're here at the airports to stop the violent element getting out to South Africa and spoiling all the fun for the genuine fans.

"We will be stopping and targeting not just those people on banning orders but also those who have a history of violence.

"Our message to them is clear we don't want you to travel and neither do the real fans," he said.

(BMcC/GK)