Simon Dobbin: Attacked football fan photos released 'to end violence'

Photos of a football fan left with brain damage after being beaten up following a match have been released to "put an end to football violence".

Cambridge United supporter Simon Dobbin was attacked outside a pub in Southend after a game at the Roots Hall stadium.

He is currently at a rehabilitation centre in Norwich, but it is not known how much he will recover.

"I'd hate anyone else to go through what we've been through," said Simon's wife Nicole, who released the photos.

"Hopefully these photos will bring people forward to police and put an end to football violence. It only takes one blow to the head," she said.

Essex Police said he was an "entirely innocent person" who is now "looking at the possibility of having to live with a permanent brain injury". Fifteen suspects remain on police bail.

Mr Dobbin, from Mildenhall in Suffolk, was beaten outside the Railway pub in March as he and a group of friends walked towards Prittlewell station.

Mrs Dobbin said the group had already walked past the pub once to get to the station, but then they realised they were at the wrong platform, so had to walk back past it.

The group was then jumped on from behind and there was a "big riot going on", she said.

As he was being beaten, he suffered a cardiac arrest and it took emergency services seven minutes to get his heart restarted, which caused hypoxic brain damage, she said.

"It needs to stop, the violence at football," she said.

"We did all that 'what ifs'. What if I said you couldn't go, what if I had have gone with him, what if he had got in a car, but you cant live on 'what ifs'.

"We've got to look to the future now and make the best of it."