Liverpool parade suspect breaks down in tears as jury sworn in

A man accused of driving a car into crowds at Liverpool FC’s victory parade broke down in tears ahead of the start of his trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

Paul Doyle, 54, appeared emotional as he denied four amended charges relating to the crash in Liverpool city centre in May.

Wearing glasses and a black suit, he then placed his head in his hands and cried as potential jurors were brought into a packed courtroom ahead of jury selection for the trial.

Doyle is charged with a total of 17 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent, nine counts of causing GBH with intent, three counts of wounding with intent, affray and dangerous driving. He denies all the charges.

Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC told seven men and five women sworn in as jurors that the trial was on events connected to Doyle’s “alleged conduct at the Liverpool FC parade”.

He said: “The incident, as you may already be aware from general public knowledge, occurred in a busy city centre setting and has been the subject of public attention.”

He told the jurors that their decisions must be based solely on the evidence put before them in the court, and warned them against carrying out their own research. “Don’t let your inquisitiveness get the better of you,” he added.

The jurors were sent home shortly before midday, and were told the case would resume with the prosecution expected to open the case on Wednesday morning.

Merseyside Police said 134 people were reported injured after a Ford Galaxy Titanium collided with crowds as they were leaving the Premier League title-winning parade, which featured an open-top bus with the club’s players and attracted one million people.

The crash took place on Water Street just after 6pm on 26 May.

Doyle is charged with a total of 31 offences relating to the incident. Before the jury was sworn in on Tuesday, he was rearraigned on four counts that were amended to reflect medical evidence. He entered not guilty pleas to all four.

The charges relate to 29 victims, aged between six months and 77 years old.

Man arrested in connection with fly-tipping waste mountain

A 39-year-old man has been arrested as part of the investigation into large-scale illegal tipping of waste at a site in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, the Environment Agency said.

The illegal fly tipping site near the River Cherwell has sparked major outrage among residents and MPs, and was later declared a critical incident by the Environment Agency (EA).

The Environment Agency, which was first alerted to the illegal waste dump in July, said cooperation between officers from its major investigation team and the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit has led to the arrest of a 39-year-old man from the Guildford area.

Following the arrest, Anna Burns, the Environment Agency’s area director for the Thames, said: “The appalling illegal waste dump in Kidlington has rightly provoked outrage over the potential consequences for the community and environment.

“We have been working round the clock with the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit to bring the perpetrators to justice and make them pay for this offence.

“Our investigative efforts have secured an arrest today, which will be the first step in delivering justice for residents and punishing those responsible.”

The prime minister previously said he is appalled by the “disgusting” mountain of waste and that he wants to see it cleaned up as quickly as possible.

Sir Keir Starmer backed the EA’s criminal investigation into the vast fly tip in a field alongside the A34 in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, and said the regulator should use all its powers to get on with the clean-up of the site.

The EA has deployed additional officers to manage the area and progress its investigation, named Operation Nation, which is following “several lines of inquiry”.

Its teams have agreed on a plan to erect additional barriers to minimise waste moving into the river if there is rainfall or flooding.

Drone footage has shown the mound of rubbish – which the EA has described as shredded household and commercial waste such as paper, card and plastic – stretching for 150m through the field, while concerns have been raised about pollution into the nearby river.

The Environment Secretary met with EA chief executive Philip Duffy on Thursday to discuss the multi-agency response.

On Friday, Emma Reynolds said in a statement: “The appalling illegal waste dumped in Kidlington is disgraceful and I know how strongly local people feel about the site.

“I’ve instructed the Environment Agency to take decisive action to reduce the risk of environmental harm and I am pleased they are now installing additional barriers to prevent pollution of the Cherwell.

“I am being regularly updated on the ongoing investigation and I want to see justice served for this disgusting crime.”

A temporary boom – a floating barrier used to contain debris on water – was already in place, the EA said.

There has not yet been any evidence of “waste breakdown”, it added.

The EA insisted it has worked “quickly and decisively” since it first visited the site in July, issuing first a cease-and-desist order to the landowner, and then obtaining a court order in October to close down the site following further illegal dumping of waste.

Mr Duffy said on Friday: “The illegal tipping in Kidlington is totally abhorrent and I share the local community’s disgust at this case of environmental vandalism.”

The area is closed and the EA said “the public and media are not allowed to enter the site and climb the waste”, as it could jeopardise the criminal investigation and risk harming the environment.

The EA has said it does not have a duty to clear waste, but does have the powers to compel action, and its priority is to manage the risks posed by the rubbish and pursue those responsible to make them pay.

Police, fire services and Oxfordshire County Council are working alongside the EA.

Local Liberal Democrat MP Calum Miller has called for the government to issue a directive similar to that for Hoades Wood near Ashford, Kent, in 2024, which told the EA to clear up the site.

Father Ted’s Graham Linehan cleared of harassing transgender activist

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has been cleared of harassing a transgender activist, but found guilty of criminal damage to her mobile phone.

Linehan, 57, flew in from Arizona and appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in person on Tuesday to hear District Judge Briony Clarke deliver the judgment.

Linehan had denied harassing Sophia Brooks on social media between 11-27 October 2024 and a charge of criminal damage to her mobile phone on 19 October outside the Battle of Ideas conference in Westminster.

Reading a summary of her judgment, the judge said she was not satisfied that Linehan’s conduct amounted to harassment or that the complainant was as distressed as she made herself out to be.

She said that Linehan had not tagged Ms Brooks in his social media posts, bar one.

While his comments were “deeply unpleasant, insulting and even unnecessary”, they were not “oppressive or unacceptable beyond merely unattractive, annoying or irritating”, she said.

However, the judge found that Linehan had taken Ms Brooks’s phone because he was “angry and fed up”, and had damaged it by knocking it to the ground.

The judge ruled that she was “not sure to the criminal standard” that Linehan had demonstrated hostility based on the complainant being transgender, and therefore this did not aggravate his offence.

He was fined £500 and ordered to pay costs of £650 and a statutory surcharge of £200.

Linehan’s lawyer Sarah Vine KC asked that he be given 28 days to pay the full amount.

The court previously heard that Ms Brooks had begun taking photographs of delegates at the event during a speech by Fiona McAnena, the director of campaigns at Sex Matters.

Outside the event, Ms Brooks asked Linehan: “Why do you think it is acceptable to call teenagers domestic terrorists?”

In response, the court heard that Linehan had called Ms Brooks a “sissy porn-watching scumbag”, a “groomer” and a “disgusting incel”.

The complainant responded: “You’re the incel, you’re divorced.”

Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker earlier told the court that Linehan had written “repeated, abusive, unreasonable” social media posts about Ms Brooks.

The comedy writer said that his “life was made hell” by trans activists, adding that Ms Brooks was a “young soldier in the trans activist army”.

Linehan repeatedly referred to Ms Brooks as “he” throughout the trial.

“He was misogynistic, he was abusive, he was snide,” Linehan said.

“He depended on his anonymity to get close to people and hurt them, and I wanted to destroy that anonymity.”

Why have Christmas sandwiches become so unhinged?

Every November, Britain enters a kind of seasonal delirium. One moment, the supermarket shelves are lined with perfectly sensible meal deals; the next, they’re stuffed with turkey, stuffing, cranberry chutney and whatever new “innovation” the nation’s product developers have dreamt up in a windowless room.

Overnight, the humble sandwich becomes a festival of overcomplication: pigs-in-blankets ciabattas, Yorkshire pudding wraps, Boxing Day curry wedged between slices of onion bread, porchetta baguettes littered with parmesan, cranberries and shredded apple.

For reasons that defy science and sanity, this is the month we collectively decide that an entire roast dinner belongs in a cold, portable, £5 (if you’re lucky) lunch format.

But even by our own standards, the Christmas sandwich economy has become unhinged. At the top end, you have Leon’s Veggie Twistmas ciabatta, stuffed with roasted squash, halloumi, apricot-and-pine-nut stuffing and pomegranate molasses sauce, retailing at £7.99. Gail’s is charging £7.80 for its smoked turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich. Starbucks’ Festive Feast Toastie comes in at £6.65. These are prices that would have felt absurd for a hot lunch five years ago, let alone something eaten with one hand at your desk.

It’s the dissonance that makes Christmas sandwiches so compelling: they’re billed as limited-edition luxuries, marketed like collector’s items, yet held to the very low standards of something grabbed in a queue behind a man buying Monster and Rizla. And perhaps that contradiction is why so many of them are, frankly, a bit terrible.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: the roast dinner was never meant to work cold.

Turkey breast is a scientific impossibility in sandwich form; lean meat contracts as it cools, squeezing out moisture, which is why most festive sandwiches rely heavily on some kind of Christmas-adjacent mayo – gravy mayo, stuffing mayo, sage mayo – to glue the whole thing together. Stuffing, meanwhile, tastes rich and aromatic when warm, but turns into festive sawdust the moment it chills. Cranberry sauce slides unpredictably, giving every bite a dangerous leftward drift. And the minute you add slaw, parsnip fritters or pickled cabbage – this year’s big trend, for reasons no one has fully explained – you introduce the risk that the whole thing collapses on impact.

Yet every year, supermarkets double down. The category has become a competitive sport: who can reinvent the festive sandwich in a way that makes us look twice? Tesco replaced the wrap with a Yorkshire pudding and drenched it in gravy mayonnaise. Pret launched a porchetta and sage baguette, which in one review was praised for its herby crust and in another dismissed as texturally confusing. Black Sheep Coffee invented a pigs-in-blanket ciabatta that reviewers claim is the ultimate hangover cure. Waitrose went big on a turkey curry sandwich loaded with raita, mango chutney and a cranberry bhaji. Aldi threw in Christmas slaw and hot honey mayo – because why not?

The results are gloriously inconsistent. If supermarkets are the athletes, the rest of us are spectators and reviewers, the pundits. One calls the Starbucks Festive Feast Toastie the best in the country; another says its crisped top and soggy underside make for an “unpleasant mish-mash”. Pret’s porchetta is either an impressive seasonal shake-up or completely baffling. Even the M&S Turkey Feast – the nation’s perennial sentimental favourite – now competes with a £2.75 Aldi number that outperformed almost everyone in blind tests. At times, it’s hard to tell whether the disparity is down to a postcode lottery of quality, or whether reviewers are simply trying to out-contradict one another for sport.

Still, patterns emerge. M&S reliably lands in the top tier for its neat layering and dependable classic profile. Aldi has, improbably, become the people’s champion, producing sandwiches that punch above their price point. Pret, once the Christmas-sandwich gold standard, has entered its chaotic era: sometimes brilliant, sometimes cursed. Greggs continues to struggle with festive formats – this year, its Festive Flatbread was awarded a single, mercy-killing star. Sainsbury’s and ASDA hover eternally in the midfield. Tesco swings for the fences with big ideas, which may or may not actually work.

And while the sensory quirks of cold roast dinner components explain part of the weirdness, the rest is purely cultural. Christmas sandwiches are a deeply British phenomenon: the one meal where nostalgia, convenience and seasonal hysteria intersect. They’re designed to mimic Boxing Day leftovers, Proustian in their ability to evoke gravy fumes and discarded Quality Street wrappers, even when eaten under strip lighting in a queue. They trade on scarcity and ritual; they turn lunch into a tiny, edible advent calendar. That they’re often messy, structurally unsound or faintly absurd seems almost part of the charm.

Perhaps that’s why people hold such strong opinions about them. To borrow a line from M&S, a Christmas sandwich isn’t just a sandwich. It’s a personality test. Choose M&S’s own Turkey Feast, for example, and you’re a traditionalist: respectable, reliable, the kind of person who already has their wrapping paper. Reach for Aldi’s gammon bloomer and you’re quietly efficient, immune to hype, a person who finds joy in simplicity. Opt for the Leon Veggie Twistmas and you’re embracing festive chaos with £7.99 worth of confidence. Go for Tesco’s Yorkshire pudding wrap and you’ve given yourself over to pure novelty. Pick the Starbucks toastie and you’re a loyalist to the dairy-mayo industrial complex. And the Pret porchetta? You’re probably an optimist – someone who truly believes this year’s sandwich might be different.

So why are Christmas sandwiches so weird? Because we want them to be. Because this is Britain, where we like to take something fundamentally homely – in this case, a roast dinner – and ask it to commute to work. Because supermarkets know there is no more powerful force in food psychology than festive nostalgia. And because for one strange month, we’re willing to forgive any number of culinary crimes committed in the name of December cheer – even Sainsbury’s mince pie brioche-style wrap.

Messy, inconsistent, occasionally inspired and frequently underwhelming, the Christmas sandwich isn’t so much a treat as a national ritual: the edible equivalent of watching the John Lewis ad or pretending you enjoy mulled wine. It’s the most British lunch imaginable: optimistic in theory, compromised in execution, and clung to with inexplicable seasonal loyalty. If that isn’t us in sandwich form, nothing is.

Cruise through Cajun Country on this unforgettable Louisiana road trip

A circular route from New Orleans takes you north along the Mississippi through Louisiana’s River Parishes to Baton Rouge. Loop through Lafayette and Houma on Highway 90, before returning to New Orleans. Whilst the 300-mile road trip can be done in a week, a fortnight or more best suits the southern laidback spirit to truly discover treasures along the way.

Best planned for early spring, when Louisiana jumps to its feet with music festivals and parties, or in the calmer autumn months when food festivals, gumbo cook-offs, and fall colours light up the oak-lined avenues. Here’s what not to miss en route…

New Orleans gives main character energy, even though the state capital, Baton Rouge, sits just 80 miles west along the river. Start the journey here with a day (or night) lost in the French Quarter, where lacy iron balconies and pastel facades are the backdrop to Jackson Square street performers and jazz music on every corner. Grab a coffee and oh-so-light powdered sugar beignet at Café du Monde, to fuel exploration of the city’s great cultural institutions, such as The National WWII Museum or the evocative Historic Voodoo Museum. Ride the St. Charles Streetcar past moss-draped oaks and stately mansions in the Garden District, or explore the city by foot to find your own adventure.

For a quirky day trip, drive across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway – the world’s longest continuous bridge over water, according to the Guinness World Records – to find Abita Mystery House in Abita Springs; a curious folk-art installation of animated miniature towns and oddities from the mind of local inventor, John Preble.

Follow the Mississippi River north towards Baton Rouge, with a few stops en route. Explore Houmas House Estate and Gardens: once one of the largest sugar plantations in the country, visitors can now dine at one of the many restaurants and take guided tours showcasing the extensively-restored manor house and expansive gardens. Whitney Plantation, about 30 miles downriver gives a heartbreaking and evocative account of enslavement, and visiting these two plantations gives a sense of how both sides lived.

Baton Rouge emerges like a stately figurehead, rocking on the porch at the top of the Great River Road. A hub for art, music and politics, Baton Rouge is also a food mecca with fine dining, soul food, and the Red Stick Farmers Market – filled with homemade goods on the weekend. The gothic inspired Old State Capitol museum wouldn’t look out of place in a medieval fairytale, whilst climbing the current State Capitol building’s tower unravels views of the Mississippi river snaking through the landscape below.

Drive 55 miles westward, and find yourself in Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge – halfway along Interstate 10. The conservation area protects over 15,000 acres of hardwood forest and swamp habitat; spot alligators paddling through the bayous riverways, bird watch for woodpeckers, wrens and warblers, or just take in the impressive scenery.

Follow the sound of zydeco music down the Interstate to the dance halls of Lafayette. The heart of Cajun and Creole country, Lafayette is the ultimate place to tap your feet to this blend of French accordion and Afro-Caribbean beats. Louisiana’s French history is very much alive, as French conversations linger in the porchlight or come to life in Vermilionville folk museum, the re-creation of a 19th-century Acadiana village. Lafayette is also a food lover’s paradise. Try spicy boudin sausage from a roadside meat market, feast on gumbo as dark as a bayou at dusk, or savor po’boys and crawfish étouffée stew at a local café.

U.S. Highway 90 takes you southeast to the coastal wetlands of Houma. If you like it spicy, make a stop off in New Iberia and follow the pepper-scented air to Avery Island, home to the world’s only Tabasco factory and the botanical Jungle Garden of conservationist and hot sauce founder, Edward Avery McIlhenny.

As you travel further south, sing along with the southern leopard frogs on a guided swamp tour, spot another alligator, or drop into Houma’s Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum to hear the story of shrimpers, oystermen, and how this slice of coastline has been shaped by cultural, industrial and ecological events.

With a suitcase full of memories and joie de vivre, head back to New Orleans. Every mile offers a detour worth taking; from the turbulent history and uplifting music, to watery labyrinths and astounding swamp wildlife. A Louisiana road trip invites you to slow down and enjoy a journey into the true Deep South.

For more travel inspiration and information visit Explore Louisiana

We were all idiots at school. But we weren’t all racist, Mr Farage

I was an idiot at school. I used to nod and put two fingers out in a peace sign and say “spex” to boys I fancied (short for “respect”) and thought I was cool as anything. I wrote “I hate Maths and Mr Smith” on the front of my folder and got caught by… Mr Smith; I self-described as “popular”; I was even a one-time playground bully – running away from my best friend Roz in the lunch hall so she had to eat by herself. But you know what I wasn’t at school – and have never been? Racist. Not even for “banter”. Not the case, as it goes, for Nigel Farage.

The Reform UK leader has been accused of making racist and antisemitic comments while at Dulwich College by more than a dozen of his former classmates – which comes as a surprise to precisely no one. One former pupil, the Bafta and Emmy-award winning director Peter Ettedgui, 61, has alleged Farage told him “Hitler was right” and “Gas them” – then did a hissing impression to simulate the sound of the Nazi gas showers.

Farage, in a typically slippery denial, chose his words carefully, saying he “never directly racially abused anybody” and didn’t engage in racism “with intent”. He admitted saying things as a teenager that were “banter in a playground”, but could be interpreted differently now. Well, I’m not buying it. And here’s why.

For one thing, describing Nazi Germany’s deliberate, organised and state-sponsored persecution and genocide of approximately six million European Jews as “right” is pretty cut and dried racism, however you squint. It’s also not remotely funny – even by teenage boy standards – so it loses out on the defence of “banter”. And sure, you might argue that teenagers say stupid things in poor taste; and you’d be right. But there’s something darker to “lols” like this. Because not everybody does it. Not everybody reaches into the darkest recesses of the joke cabinet and pulls out prejudice. If you do, it says something about you.

Jokes maketh the man, you see. There’s nothing quite so revealing as what we find funny – especially in the privacy of our tight-knit group of friends; the “jokes” and “lols” we make when we are in our own homes, sure that we won’t be overheard; when we are relaxed and loose-lipped or have had too much to drink.

And there’s only so much we can blame being inebriated for: the defence of “I was drunk, I didn’t mean it” (as in the case of disgraced British fashion designer John Galliano, who in 2011 blamed overwork and a “triple addiction” to drink and drugs for a racist tirade in a bar in Paris; or Reform UK’s seven candidates, ditched following complaints about their social media posts and warned by the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice “not to tweet drunk”) only takes you so far. You have to look at the person, not the booze. I’ve never suddenly become racist or sexist after a couple of glasses of wine. Have you? No – it has to be inside you, to begin with.

And that’s exactly the case with waving off hate disguised as “banter”, which is something we women understand all too well. Wayne Couzens made rape “jokes” in WhatsApp messages with colleagues – he went on to rape and murder Sarah Everard. Self-confessed misogynist Andrew Tate tried to pass rape and homophobic comments on social media off as “sarcasm” – he’s currently facing 10 rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking charges in Romania, alongside his brother Tristan. We know exactly which men to watch out for: they’re the ones using disgusting sexist slurs and groping us, followed up with the achingly predictable: “Can’t you take a joke?”

Donald Trump tried the “banter” defence, too, to try and wriggle his way out of being caught on tape talking about sexually assaulting women and saying “Grab them by the p***y. You can do anything” in 2005. Referring to his foul, sexist comments afterwards, the US president implied it was just “banter”. “It’s locker room talk,” he said. “It’s one of those things.” But fast forward 20 years and he’s still doing it – telling a female journalist “quiet, piggy” just last week. The old adage is entirely true: when someone shows you who they are, believe them.

Farage, then, has “done a Trump” and tried to fend off these racism accusations by saying: “Can I remember everything that happened at school? No, I can’t”, insisting: “I have never directly, really tried to go and hurt anybody.” But that doesn’t ring true to me – just look at his party’s pledges.

Reform UK’s immigration policies are designed – actively and directly – to hurt people. Farage’s own party said in September it would scrap the right of all non-EU migrants to apply for indefinite leave to remain and force them to reapply under much stricter rules, ban anyone who is not a UK citizen from claiming benefits – and force those applying for UK citizenship to renounce other citizenship, a policy that could impact hundreds of thousands of people. Even Keir Starmer has branded it “racist and immoral”.

If Farage wants to claim he isn’t racist, I would argue that he needs to show us proof, because his words and actions – both current and historic – suggest strongly otherwise. His defence is entirely moot. It’s not just “teenage banter” – it’s very grown-up policy.

Idrissa Gueye sending off explained after fighting with Everton teammate

Everton’s Idrissa Gueye was sent off just 13 minutes into a match at Manchester United after slapping his teammate Michael Keane in an extraordinary incident that left the visitors down to 10 men at Old Trafford.

Everton went on to claim a stunning victory after playing for more than 80 minutes with 10 men as David Moyes and his players held on to the advantage secured by Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s first-half strike.

But the big talking point came early in the game as Gueye became the first Premier League player to be sent off for fighting a teammate since 2008.

The pair squared up after Gueye’s loose pass gifted a chance to United captain Bruno Fernandes, who fired wide. Gueye was irate and raised his left hand to slap Keane, with referee Tony Harrington immediately producing a red card, which was confirmed by VAR Paul Howard.

Gueye had to be restrained by teammates Jordan Pickford and Iliman Ndiaye as he eventually made his way down the tunnel. The 36-year-old midfielder attempted to get to Keane – who continued to berate him.

It was hardly a punch, but the laws of the game state that players should be sent off for “striking an opponent or any other person on the head or face with their hand or arm, unless the force used was negligible.”

On Sky Sports, Gary Neville argued the incident did not warrant a red card, adding: “They were not fighting, it wasn’t a scrap. It could have been dealt with by a yellow. I don’t think it needed to be a red.”

Jamie Carragher agreed that referee Harrington acted too quickly. “I just think: can a referee manage the situation a bit better?” he said. “Can you get the two of them together and say, ‘Hey can you behave yourselves?’”

But the Premier League said: “The referee’s call of red card to Gueye for violent conduct was checked and confirmed by VAR – with the action deemed to be a clear strike to the face of Keane.”

Gueye’s red card was the first time that a player had been sent off for fighting a teammate in the Premier League since Stoke City’s Ricardo Fuller slapped teammate and captain Andy Griffin during a defeat to West Ham in December 2008.

Another infamous example of Premier League in-fighting was when Newcastle team-mate Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer brawled with each other during the 3-0 loss to Aston Villa at St James’ Park in April 2005.

Gueye’s strike on Keane hardly reached those levels, but it left The Toffees in a sticky situation at Old Trafford. That said, Dewsbury-Hall scored a spectacular opening goal to give the 10-man visitors the lead at half-time, an advantage they held on to as they produced a resilient performance of togetherness that defied Gueye’s earlier action.

It left Everton boss Moyes delighted, who claimed his first ever win at Old Trafford as an away manager, praising the spirit of his players and claiming: “I like my players fighting each other.”

Moyes said that Gueye had apologised to Keane and his teammates and the Everton manager also felt that the referee had acted too quickly. “If nothing happened, I don’t think anyone in the stadium would have been surprised,” he said.

“I thought the referee could have taken a bit longer to think about it. I got told that the rules of the game [are] that if you slap your own player, you could be in trouble.

“But there’s another side to it: I like my players fighting each other, if someone didn’t do the right action. If you want that toughness and resilience to get a result, you want someone to act on it.

“I’m disappointed we get the sending off. But we’ve all been footballers, we get angry with our teammates. He’s apologised for the sending off, he’s praised the players and thanked them for it and apologised for what happened.”

Match-winner Dewsbury-Hall said Gueye’s red card brought those on the pitch closer together as they fought to see out the win. Goalkeeper Pickford made some key saves, while there were also a number of blocks from the Everton defence that stopped United from finding an equaliser.

“Rollercoaster game. I’ll sleep well tonight, put it that way,” Dewsbury-Hall said. “So genuinely happy for the lads and how hard they worked. A fantastic performance of gritting away, getting a goal and keeping that spirit. So glad we got the three points.

“We started really well – the situation happened. It was a moment of madness, avoidable. But all I can say is Idrissa has apologised to us at full-time, said his piece and that’s all he can do. We move on from it.

“The reaction from us, was unbelievable. Top tier. We could have crumbled but if anything, it made us grow.”

As Gueye was sent off for violent conduct, he will serve a three-match ban. However, the Senegal international will go to the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) at the start of December, so he may not play for Everton again for a couple of months.

Gueye later apologised for the incident in a social media post. “I want to apologise first to my teammate Michael Keane. I take full responsibility for my reaction,” he wrote on Instagram.

“I also apologise to my teammates, the staff, the fans and the club. What happened does not reflect who I am or the values I stand for. Emotions can run high, but nothing justifies such behaviour.

“I’ll make sure it never happens again.”