A man who sent a ‘vile and disgusting’ racist message to a professional footballer has been banned from attending any matches for three years.

Harry Dunbar, 20, of John Bunyan Close in Whiteley, sent racial slurs via Instagram to Christopher Wreh, following an FA Cup match between Tamworth and Tottenham Hotspur in January.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary’s dedicated Football Unit and Investigations Team worked with forces across the country to identify the person behind the account and put them before the courts.

Wreh came on as a substitute for Tamworth in that game, but when he returned home and logged into Instagram he found he had received a message from an account he did not know called ‘Dunztagram’.

Shocked by this, he posted a screenshot of the message including the username and then shared it on his social media, accompanied by a message that read: “After an amazing day today, this is the last thing I expected to see when I opened Instagram. Never the less, thank you for all the support today. Fans were unreal.”

This post was viewed over 1.7 million times and as a result of this post Wreh was contacted and sent personal messages by others who identified the account holder as Harry Dunbar, who was living in Hampshire at the time.

Wreh shared this with the Dedicated Football Officer (DFO) for Tamworth FC for Staffordshire Police, who then passed this on to the UK Football Policing Unit and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary’s dedicated Football Unit.

Once the evidence had been gathered, police attended the home address of Harry Dunbar in Whiteley and he was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated malicious communications.

His phone was seized and, although the Instagram account had been removed, through examination it was identified that he was the owner of the ‘Dunztagram’ account. In interview he then admitted sending the message because he had lost a bet.

Dunbar was sentenced at Portsmouth Magistrates Court on Wednesday 18 June, where he was handed a three-year football banning order and a 12-month Community Order of 200 hours unpaid work and 10 Rehabilitation Activity Requirement days.

Superintendent Adrian Hall, Head of the Operations Unit for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, said:

“Just because Christopher Wreh was a footballer, Dunbar decided he had the right to send him a tirade of racist insults.

“Nobody should ever be subjected to such vile and disgusting abuse, regardless of what they do for a living.

“I am absolutely appalled by the racist language used by Dunbar, but immensely thankful to Christopher Wreh for his bravery in standing up to this horrible abuse and assisting the police investigation.

“Thanks to Christopher, this man will not have the privilege of going to football matches and that is an important result from this case, as racism doesn’t belong in football stadiums or anywhere else in society.

“I want to thank our officers and those from forces across the country, including the central UK Football Policing Unit, who all worked together to identify Dunbar and bring him to justice.

“This shows that no matter where you are from, or where the match is taking place, Dedicated Football Officers across the country will be united in their efforts to root out racists and remove them from the game we love to watch.”

Cheshire Constabulary Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the NPCC Lead for football policing, said:

“Everyone is responsible for what they do and say, and posting a message on social media is no different. In this case, Dunbar sent a racist comment directly to Wreh on Instagram, thinking that he would be able to hide behind his account name.

“His comments were totally abhorrent and quite rightly they shocked and appalled people across the country when Wreh bravely shared the message that he had been sent.

“I welcome the sentence that has been handed to Dunbar and I hope that it acts as a warning to other social media users, demonstrating that you will be held accountable for what you post.

“We have been clear that hate crime online or in person, is not acceptable and as we have shown in this case, you cannot hide behind a social media profile to post vile comments and spread hate.”