Tottenham supporter handed three-year ban after vile Hillsborough disaster gesture

The vile gesture was made during Spurs' Premier League match against Liverpool at Anfield on April 30, which the home side won in dramatic fashion.

On Tuesday, the Crown Prosecution Service found that Kieron Darlow, 25, had made gestures towards Liverpool supporters mocking the tragedy.

The catastrophic event saw 97 football fans lose their lives in a crush at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough Stadium in 1989. An inquest jury in 2016 ruled that the deaths were unlawful after a catalogue of policing errors at the time.

Andrew Page, of CPS Mersey Cheshire, said in a statement: "Darlow admitted making a gesture towards the Liverpool fans and that this was a reference to the Hillsborough disaster. He admitted that this was to suggest that fans without tickets had pushed forward in the tragedy and had been partly to blame for the crush that led to so many deaths.

“He accepted at court that it was his intention that Liverpool fans should see this and that it would cause them harassment, alarm and distress. Darlow knew what he was doing and it was done knowing what an impact the Hillsborough tragedy had on Liverpool fans and the city of Liverpool but he did it anyway.

"This sort of behaviour is not only morally unacceptable, it is criminal. We hope this prosecution sends a message out to all football fans that their behaviour at football games is important and that, if it crosses into criminality, they will be met with the full force of the law.”

It is not the first time the Hillsborough disaster has been used in an abhorrent message from rival fans.

Ahead of the FA Cup final earlier this month - in which Liverpool were not even playing - one Manchester United fan made a reference to the 97 victims on the back of his replica shirt, alongside the words "not enough".

That man was arrested by Met police after the photograph was brought to their attention, and is pending further investigation.