New season sees arrests on transport soar

THE start of the new football season has seen some of the worst ever levels of hooliganism on public transport, the chief constable of British Transport Police has said.

Andy Trotter told Police Review this week that football-related violence has 'never gone away' and that the BTP had actually seen a sharp rise in recent years.

He added that the situation had become so bad that the force was having to build more custody facilities, partly to cope with the number of arrests on match days.

He said: 'Within the BTP [football violence] has never gone away - we have always had problems on the transport system with football hooligans. The beginning of this year has been one of the worst starts to a season we have had for a very long time and our arrests continue to go up.'