A "REFORMED" Carlisle football hooligan responsible for a violent attack on a lone female charity volunteer eight years ago has persuaded a judge to lift his ban on going to games.

Carl Campbell, 40, was given a ten-year football banning order after the upsetting and unprvoked attack in Carlisle city centre on August 9, 2014, when Carlisle United were playing at home against Luton Town FC.

A crown court judge jailed Campbell for 33 months after hearing about how he gratuitously punched the woman in the face outside the city's Griffin pub while she was  fundraising for a dementia charity.

Falling to the ground, she struck her head and was left covered in blood and suffered a facial scar, the court heard.

As well as being jailed, Campbell was given the banning order, which bars him from entering most of the city centre in the hours before and after any Carlisle United game.

He must also surrender his passport in the run-up to any major international games abroad. Campbell has now served two thirds of his banning order and is therefore entitled to apply to have it ended early, said prosecutor Gerard Rogerson.

The lawyer said that while Campbell admitted an actual bodily harm assault, Judge Paul Batty QC remarked at the time that it could easily have been classed as a wounding offence.

“The injury was serious and left a permanent cosmetic blemish,” said Mr Rogerson.

The defendant also had relevant previous convictions – many drink-fuelled - for football related violence.

Of the assault, the lawyer added: “He followed it up by throwing punches at Luton fans in the doorway of the public house. “[The victim] was covered in blood and in extreme pain.”

In a letter to the court, Campbell said he had stayed out of trouble for the last eight years and taken part in “restorative justice,” which involved meeting his victim.

“I feel that I am a reformed person,” he wrote.

In court, Campbell, now living at Grierson Road, Currock, told Recorder Julian Shaw: “I don’t want to make excuses for what happened that day.

“The rehabilitation and going to jail were the best thing to happen to me.” He said this experience had made him realise that innocent people can be hurt when fans clash after matches.

He said: “I sat in a room [with the victim] for two hours and I promised her I would not get into trouble again; and I have done justice to that over the last eight years.”

Campbell added that he hoped to go to Carlisle United games with his young and with his own father. The Carlisle city centre ban on match days also interfered with his work as a self-employed electrician.

Recorder Julian Shaw said Campbell’s behaviour in 2014 had been “disgraceful.” But Parliament, when formulating the current legislation, had intended that bans could be lifted early in certain circumstances.

Campbell had engaged in restorative justice, kept out of trouble and found that jail was a “wake-up” call. “I intend to terminate the banning order from September 10,” said the judge. “This applicant will have served a full seven years of the 10-year order.”

Campbell thanked the judge as he left court.