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Four Chelsea fans given suspended jail terms for racist incident

LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 02:  A general view of the stadium prior to kickoff during the Barclays Premier League match between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur at

Four Chelsea supporters have been handed suspended jail terms by a French court for their part in a racist incident before a Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain.

They have also been ordered to pay the victim 10,000 euros (£8,496) in compensation.

The men were charged after video footage appeared of them pushing a black man off a Paris metro train during the incident in February 2015. 

Joshua Parsons, 22, a former pupil of the elite Millfield school in England, now working in the building trade, and James Fairbairn, 25, a civil engineer, were the only two among the four to appear in court.

Both wore grey suits for the hearing where a video of the incident was shown.

Richard Barklie, a 52-year-old former policeman, and William Simpson, 27, were tried in absentia.

The incident in February 2015 before a Champions League match between PSG and Chelsea was filmed by a Briton, Paul Nolan, and published by the Guardian newspaper.

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The video showed commuter Souleymane Sylla repeatedly being violently thwarted in his attempts to get on a train at the Richelieu-Drouot station. Station CCTV footage also recorded the scene.

Parsons, Fairbairn and Barklie have already been banned from football stadiums in Britain.

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