TWO murderers of a vulnerable Lincoln man had links to the far-right English Defence League, according to police.
Daryll Jones, 17, and Mark Jackson, 21, were two of the top targets in Lincolnshire Police's attempts to ban people from the Sincil Bank area on Lincoln City match days.
They were identified by football intelligence officers along with ten others in Operation Argyll.
As reported in the Echo, this operation aims to use civil football banning orders to stop people hanging around with suspected troublemakers.
But the cases against Jones and Jackson, of Yarborough Road, Lincoln, were put on hold after they were arrested on suspicion of killing football enthusiast Shaun Rossington.
Asperger’s sufferer Shaun, 21, of Dunkirk Road, was found to have suffered more than 40 injuries. He was punched, kicked and stamped on during the attack on grassland, off Searby Road, on June 3.
Jones and Jackson were found guilty of his murder, along with two others, at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday.
Lincolnshire Police football intelligence officer PC Karl Williams said: "When we initially started Operation Argyll, Jones and Jackson were quite prominent.
"If they had not been charged with murder, they would have been on the scheme.
"We started to get information on these two every time Lincoln City had a game and there were some indications they were connected to the English Defence League."
In September 2009, Jones and Jackson were banned from entering Lincoln City's Sincil Bank stadium and Lincoln United’s Ashby Avenue.
Police issued the warnings after the pair were identified in a group that caused disorder at Ashby Avenue and Lincoln train station on August 22, 2009.
Jones pleaded guilty to one public order offence related to these incidents last March.
PC Williams said: "The ultimate aim of the operation is to target those youths not only causing problems at the football, but in the city centre and at night on the estates.
"It was a case if we are able to ban them from the football, it's taking away the chance of them getting convicted of more serious offences.
"We were compiling the cases on Jones and Jackson and they were quite strong.
"They were two of our strongest ones and I have no doubt whatsoever we would have got them banned."
Nicolas Shelbourne, 27, of Laughton Way, Lincoln, and Jordan O'Rouke, 17, were also convicted of Shaun's murder. Jurors found a 17-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, guilty of manslaughter.
A 16-year-old boy was cleared of all charges. A 14-year-old girl was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.