Tried In Bulgaria? Bummer.

Michael Shields, an 18 year-old Briton, was convicted yesterday of hitting a bartender in the head with, um, a brick he threw during a little (soccer-related, of course) disagreement in Bulgaria last spring. The bartender suffered major injuries (a chunk of his skull is gone, and he's brain-damaged), and the sentence was stiff: 15 years in jail, and £70,000 to the victim. All of which would be what the hooligan deserves, if it wasn't for the fact that someone else did it-- I mean, he confessed and everything. (Though the guy's refusal to either testify for the defense or actually go to Bulgaria to be tried sort of takes the shine off of his good deed.) There was also testimony in court from witnesses who saw Shields go to bed hours before the attack took place, but none of this truth nonsense had any impact. Plus, the rest of Europe tends to frown rather severely on English soccer fans and their propensity for boozed-up, idiotic violence, so the judge may have been a bit grumpy to begin with.

Ah well. Hey, at least the prison in which young Michael might (pending an adventure in a Belgian appeals court) spend the next 15 years is in a resort town. This way, the fam can visit the boy and shake off that English pallor in one easy trip!