continued.............
Significantly, Thompson, who had also been charged with hooliganism, had already made a confession, for which he had received a six-month suspended sentence, after confirming that he had attacked Mr Georgiev together with Wilson and Shields. However, when the trial began and Thompson was called to give evidence, he gave a highly contradictory and muddled account of events.
In front of two judges and three jury members, Thompson said he did not know Shields, despite the fact that he had stayed in a room next to his at the hotel. Backtracking on his own confession, he said that he had only seen the fight from far away and ran off after a brick was thrown at someone's head by someone with "brownish hair" whom he did not know. In so testifying, he had effectively ruled out Mr Sankey as the culprit, since he was someone whom he knew well.
As the other defence witnesses trooped in to give evidence regarding Shields's whereabouts at 3am, it became obvious that a surprisingly large number of his friends had seen him peacefully asleep at that time - even those who were not staying in the same room. All sorts of reasons were given for their having stumbled into the apparently unlocked room where they had, they said, seen his prone form before retreating. One had gone to the room thinking that there might be a party there, only to be disappointed to find every-one was tucked up in bed, while another had dropped by to retrieve his mobile telephone, and so on.
One defence witness, Paul Graney, pointed the finger at Mr Sankey, although his testimony was anything but conclusive. Mr Graney said: "He never said that he did not hit anybody, but neither had he said he did hit somebody." Both Graney and Shields had denied being related, but eventually Shields was forced to admit that they were "kind of cousins".
Then came the bombshell that catapulted the case into the headlines: from the safety of Britain, Mr Sankey issued a confession via his solicitor that he was indeed the man who had nearly killed Mr Georgiev. Mr Sankey was not, however, prepared to stand trial. His expectation seemed to be that Shields would now be set free and the matter forgotten about.
The defence, naturally, seized upon the admission. But the court's judges seemed less impressed, prompting intercontinental outcries of incredulity. What nobody seemed to ask was why the court should accept a confession that ran counter to all the known facts of the case. In his statement, Mr Sankey claimed that: "I saw three men running at me with bottles and bricks in their hands. I panicked and stupidly picked up a brick and threw it in the direction of the men running towards me. I saw the brick hit one of them. I panicked and I turned and ran away and returned to the hotel."
How Mr Sankey could be so certain that the man he had injured was Mr Georgiev was puzzling. Certainly the Bulgarian's injuries, which included having a three-inch section of his skull staved out with something far more substantial than a lofted brick, were inconsistent with Mr Sankey's account.
The prosecution witnesses saw a man, whom they believed was Shields, smash a paving slab on Mr Georgiev's head. Even if they had mistakenly identified Shields, Mr Sankey's version was not in keeping with their accounts.
Last week, Mr Sankey and Thompson were unavailable for comment. Wilson, who was given a suspended sentence for his role in the attack, is still in Bulgaria. Others were keen, however, to keep the pressure up for Shields to be released. Mr Unsworth, an apprentice pipefitter who had been rounded up by police at the Kristal hotel, dismissed the inconsistencies in Mr Sankey's confession. "Sankey is just saying that he threw a brick, but I spoke to a lad who was there and he saw him smash the brick on the guy's head," he said.
And why had Mr Sankey suddenly confessed? Mr Unsworth shrugged. "Probably he thought it would not go this far, and then when it did his conscience got the better of him."
Whatever the truth, the case is an unedifying one and reflects poorly on Liverpool's football supporters. Mr Unsworth summed up the unsavoury feeling about the whole affair. He sympathised with his friend left in prison, he said, but had little pity for Mr Georgiev. "I felt sorry for him at first, but by insisting it was Michael that attacked him he is just trying to get his compensation money. Anyway, he only came out of the fish-and-chip shop to help out the Germans who were out there."
