Manslaughter and harbouring murder suspects: Former Sunderland players on wrong side of the law

Footballers and lawbreaking go together more often than it probably should, and Sunderland have had their fair share.

Michael Graham | Jan 10, 2023

Manslaughter and harbouring murder suspects: Former Sunderland players on wrong side of the law /

There is no question that former Sunderland striker Anthony Stokes is an absolute wrong’un.

Last week he was caught by police in Dublin with a large amount of drugs in his car following a high-speed chase.

That followed previous convictions for assaulting an Elvis impersonator and stalking an ex-girlfriend and her mother.

What is clear is that Stokes needs a lot of help and we hope he gets it, but he is not the only former Sunderland player to have ugly brushes with the law.

Chris Byrne

If you ever go back and watch the first couple of matches at the Stadium of Light, you would see a very exciting young player on the left wing. That was Chris Byrne.

He signed from Macclesfield Town as a youngster of real promise, but immediately started getting himself in trouble.

At the time, Manchester police were hunting a murderer who hacked someone to death with a machete. They suspected Byrne was harbouring that murder suspect in the hotel room Sunderland had organised for him whilst he settled at the club.

Two years later, Byrne was convicted of robbing a pharmacy in Urmston. In 2007 he was in intensive care after being shot in a Manchester gangland-style shooting.

Adam Johnson

Sometimes it feels like Adam Johnson is the name you are not allowed to say. It’s like a Sunderland version of Voldemort. He who must not be named.

There’s good reason for that, too, given how much shame be brought upon his boyhood club.

In March 2016, whilst still a Sunderland player, Johnson was sentenced to six years in prison for sexual activity with a child.

What Johnson did was bad enough, but that he – and the club – allowed it to go on with him still playing for the club, knowing the sheer weight of evidence against him made the incident an absolute stain on Sunderland.

He was released from jail in 2019 after serving half his sentence.

Paul Conlon

Paul Conlon never actually made an appearance for Sunderland during his year at the club. He was poached from neighbours Hartlepool due to a contractual technicality in 1996. That’s probably for the best though given his character.

In 2004 he was fined and received a lifetime ban from the Durham FA for attacking a referee in a Sunday League game. That was just the start, though.

Nine years later he received an 18 month suspended sentence for assaulting his wife. He is currently serving a 12 year prison sentence for beating his 77-year-old father to death on Christmas Eve 2020.

Darron Gibson

If anyone summed up that bleak David Moyes year and the destruction it left in its path, then it’s probably Darron Gibson.

Gibson was a quality player on his day and had a great pedigree with Manchester United and Everton. He was just starting to find some form for Sunderland in the Championship too in March 2018.

However, instead of getting his head down and riding that momentum, he decided to get drunk and plough his Mercedes 4x4 into a pile of parked cars and a taxi instead – on his way to training. He had taken sleeping tablets and drank vodka from the bottle and was three times over the legal limit.

In the end, an early guilty plea and the fact no one was harmed saved him a prison sentence, but Sunderland terminated his contract immediately and he was given a two-year community order with 250 hours of unpaid work.

Jamie Lawrence

A criminal past is not always a reason to get rid of a footballer. In 1993, Sunderland decided to give someone a chance who desperately needed it.

Jamie Lawrence was 23-years-old then, and just out of a second prison spell. The first was for stealing cars, the second for violence and robbery.

“I did three years and two months, I was 23 when I came out of my sentence and nobody wanted to know me,' Lawrence recalled some years later. “That's how I ended up at Sunderland, because I knew Terry Butcher and Ian Atkins.

“I went on the Monday, trained on the Tuesday, played against Leeds reserves on the Wednesday and I was in.”

Lawrence only played a handful of games for Sunderland but he went all the way to the Premier League with Leicester and Bradford and won a League Cup too. Fair play.

Marcos Alonso

Marcos Alonso is unquestionably the most successful former Sunderland loanee and, let’s face it, the list is very long.

He won a Champions League and Premier League title with Chelsea and currently plays for Barcelona, although there are many who believe he should never have had the opportunity.

In 2011, three years before his fine spell at Sunderland, Alonso caused the death of a young woman in Madrid. She was a passenger in his car, which collided with a wall whilst he was driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.93 mg/mL – nearly twice the legal limit.

He was driving at 70mph in a 30mph zone in wet conditions when the accident happened, and he was sentenced to 21 months in prison. Somehow, he got that downgraded to a fine and driving ban, though.