A York football hooligan has been banned from any ground where the Minstermen are playing for the next five years.

David Ellis, 39, of Pottery Road, Heworth, is also banned from going near York Railway Station on York City home match days.

A London magistrates court imposed the restrictions as part of a football banning order after hearing how Ellis had committed another football-related crime on April 1 just days before he received a 16-week prison sentence for failing to comply with a football banning order.

In 2016, Ellis was part of a pitched battle between York City and Chester City fans outside The Judge's Lodging, in Lendal, York.

York Crown Court heard in 2018 that one of several 999 callers about the Lendal incident told police control staff: “You would need an army to sort it out.” 

Ellis pleaded guilty to violent disorder at The Judge's Lodging and was jailed for 15 months.

He was also given a six-year football banning order, which among other restrictions, banned him from attending professional football matchs.

He was still subject to that order when he was arrested in Islington on April 1 this year, the day Arsenal played Leeds United at the Emirates Stadium. The home team won 4-1.

Five days later, on April 6, he was jailed at Leeds Magistrates' Court for failure to comply with a football banning order. He also pleaded guilty to a racially aggravated section 5 public order act offence following an incident in which he made racist gestures at Elland Road in October 2022 when the Yorkshire club hosted Aston Villa. The court made no separate penalty for the racially aggravated offence.

Ellis pleaded guilty at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court to breaching the football banning order in London on April 1.

He was given a four-month prison sentence, suspended for 24 months, which means that he faces a return to prison if he commits any football-related or other offence in the next two years.

The London court heard he had “numerous” breaches of football banning orders on his record.

It made him subject to a five-year football banning order forbidding him from going near York City’s stadium and York Railway Station on match days and added a similar ban on going near Elland Road and Leeds Railway Station when Leeds United is playing at home.

The order also includes a ban on him going near stadiums where either team is playing away or attending any professional domestic or international match nationwide.

He must continue to surrender his passport to police on request when England is playing abroad.

York Crown Court heard in 2018 that he had already had one football banning order.

On April 6, Leeds Magistrates' Court heard that Ellis’ racist gestures were filmed and circulated on social media.

West Yorkshire Police saw them, tracked Ellis down and charged him.

  • An earlier version of this story reported that Ellis had been jailed for making racist gestures at Elland Road. The Press would like to clarify that Ellis was jailed for failing to comply with a football banning order and no separate penalty was given for the racially aggravated public order act offence, which he admitted.