A football fan who mocked mascot Bradley Lowery during a match against the youngster’s favourite team has been given a suspended sentence by a judge who said his actions were “utterly appalling” and “disgraceful”.
During a match at Hillsborough stadium in September, the Sheffield Wednesday fan Dale Houghton, 32, taunted Sunderland fans with a picture on his phone of Bradley, who died in 2017.
Houghton, from Rotherham, admitted a public order offence at a previous hearing and, on Friday, he was given a 12-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and was ordered to do 200 hours’ unpaid work by the district judge Marcus Waite.
Waite said: “You showed callous disrespect to a brave young man who was rightly held in the highest esteem by football fans everywhere.”
More details soon …

