A Dundee lawyer is at the forefront of attempts to rid Scottish football of hooliganism, sectarianism and racism.
Vicki Bell, football liaison prosecutor for the North of Scotland, is one of three specialist prosecutors in the country tasked with cutting anti-social behaviour, not only at games but in any public place related to a football match, including trains and buses.
The aim of the specialists is to bring about a change in the culture of unruly fans by ensuring offenders are not only prosecuted but hit as hard as possible by the courts as well as being kept away from games so that everyone else can enjoy the football in peace.
Former Grove Academy pupil Vicki (35) was appointed in September last year and has already overseen some of the highest-profile cases to go through the Scottish courts.
Among those were Dundee United fan Barry McHugh, who ended up with an order to undertake 110 hours of unpaid work in the community and a three-year football banning order for any senior match in the UK, after he ran on the pitch at Tannadice during a European tie in August.
Another case hit the headlines when Hamilton sheriff Harry Small was abused on a train by a Rangers fan travelling to Dundee for another match at Tannadice.
Jamie Rhodie was recognised by a policeman at a later Dunfermline match after CCTV of him and others was circulated.
Rhodie, of Lanarkshire, admitted a sectarian breach of the peace and was fined £500 and banned from attending football for a year.
Vicki said: “The specialist approach was to achieve consistency across the whole country. That’s so wherever fans travel they’ll be given the same responses by the police and prosecutors.
“Every case arising from football matches in the North area comes to me for marking before it goes to court, no matter which fiscal is in that court.”
Vicki began her law career with Dundee firm Bruce Short in 2004, spending three years there before beginning life as a prosecutor in Perth.
“I wanted to start as a defence solicitor as I wanted to understand the defence side of it,” she said.
Moving to the Dundee fiscals office in May 2008, she was appointed FLP for the North in September last year.
“I think my main interest in this job came from thinking back to the days when I would go to football as a girl and a general awareness that it wasn’t as friendly now as it was back then.”
While admitting it is “probably too soon the say” what effect her role has had, Vicki says she has noticed an increased awareness of the new, tougher approach.
She says: “I think fans are aware of our zero tolerance policy through press coverage of incidents, particularly when people are fined and banned by the courts.
“Fans who regularly attend games tend to know about the football prosecutors because they read about all aspects of football and by seeing the hi-visibility jackets with ‘prosecutor’ at the games on the back.”