The tout colluded with staff in Liverpool FC’s ticket office while selling passes for games at ‘significantly inflated prices’
15:57, 17 Dec 2025Updated 16:05, 17 Dec 2025
Joseph Johnson, of Chelford Road in Eccleston, St Helens, aged 37
A tout who called himself “Billy big balls” while colluding with staff in Liverpool FC’s ticket office has been jailed. Joseph Johnson hatched a fraudulent scheme which saw passes for games resold at “significantly inflated prices” over the course of several years.
This involved the creation of more than 1,000 LFC memberships using fake names and details, allowing the criminal syndicate to take tickets which had been specially priced at £9 in order to allow fans from the city to attend matches. They were able to generate profits amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds in doing so, leading to four of their number being locked up today (Wednesday, December 17).
Liverpool Crown Court previously heard that Johnson and his co-defendants Louis James, James Johnson, Liam Rice and Lee Smith were “involved in a sophisticated ticket fraud”, whose “central purpose was to obtain as many Liverpool football tickets as possible”. These would then be resold “at significantly inflated prices via online secondary websites”, such as Viagogo, StubHub and Ticketbis.
Nicola Daley, prosecuting, described how both Louis James and James Johnson worked in the club’s ticket office, with the former having been employed by LFC on a casual basis from as early as 2002 before moving to this role in October 2016. The latter meanwhile had earlier been an Anfield Stadium tour guide before being reassigned to an “identical position” in 2014, thereafter leaving the club in December 2017.
However, in February 2018, an upgrade to LFC’s ticket management system identified four “local general sale tickets”, discounted to £9 for supporters residing in Liverpool postcodes, which were processed and sold before they had been made available to fans. This led to further internal investigations, which revealed that numerous other tickets in different names had been purchased using the same credit card.
Audits then established that James had “been responsible for processing somewhere between 40 to 50 local general tickets sales per home game”. This led to him being observed by a senior member of staff being collected from the stadium in a white Mercedes 4×4 by Joseph Johnson, who is no relation to James Johnson, on one occasion.
Joseph Johnson outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
The car then parked close to the nearby Park pub on Walton Breck Road before James “took up his position” at the sales window of LFC’s ticket office. Later the same day, he was observed removing around 30 envelopes containing tickets, season passes and membership cards from storage boxes and “secreting them at his desk”.
James was subsequently said to have exchanged messages with Joseph Johnson, described as being “central to the business”, before he exited his vehicle, approached the window and was handed the envelopes. This led to the matter being reported to Merseyside Police and James’ dismissal from the club.
Detectives seized his mobile phone at this time and analysed almost a quarter of a million messages and nearly 27,000 images. Ms Daley said of their findings: “Messages extracted from Louis James’ phone, in fact, tell you the story, what was going on.
“Ultimately, piecing together lots of different things, the police discovered that more than 1,000 memberships appear to have either been created or used in relation to Liverpool FC tickets as part of this. Messages between the defendants showed the almost daily, minute by minute, exchange about tickets between Louis James and Joseph Johnson from 2016 onwards.”
A jury heard of one WhatsApp exchange in August 2015, when Louis James told James Johnson: “My mate has 22 membership cards. Say you make £40 on each ticket for every home game, you get around £15,000. You would get more than that though, the big games would fetch well more.”
In spite of James ultimately being caught, jurors were told that “the business developed significantly” from this point and ultimately “extended beyond Liverpool Football Club to the obtaining by dishonest means and then reselling of tickets to matches for other Premier League football clubs”. The recovery of Joseph Johnson’s phone, following his own arrest on August 8, 2019, led to officers discovering a WhatsApp group in which he, James, Smith and Rice were participants.
Lee Smith and Liam Rice outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
This led to the discovery of messages “in relation to the buying and selling of tickets on not only a large, nationwide, but an international scale”. This came after they set up their own resale business, Seatfinder UK, in April 2018, with discussions in August of the same year having apparently referred to 80 tickets for games against Paris Saint German and Napoli being sold for a combined £12,500, having been worth a total of £720 at face value.
The company had been registered in Dubai, “away from the eyes of UK law”, in late March before, on April 10, Smith signed a lease on an office at St Helens College’s Kirkby campus, which the company “was to be operated from”. Videos which were subsequently recovered from Joseph Johnson’s phone showed rows of desks in this room, rented at a rate of £550 per month and complete with dozens of computers, apparently for the purpose of “harvesting” tickets.
The site meanwhile branded itself as “the UK’s number one for ticket resellers and buyers” and offered a “100 per cent money back guarantee” for dissatisfied customers. Ms Daley said: “The prosecution say that room became the heartbeat of the business. This was a business that had grown from bedroom computers to an operational, international business with a sophisticated website selling platform.
“The prosecution’s case is that the business, by this stage, had moved on significantly since its infancy. It had gone from the equivalent of the market stall to a local shop and, thereafter, to the supermarket chain or Amazon of unauthorised football resale tickets.”
Computers which were subsequently seized when the premises was raided during the summer of 2020 contained a document which made apparent references to the operation having 250 memberships at Liverpool FC, 100 at each of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur and 50 at Manchester City. Jurors were also read several further WhatsApp messages which had been exchanged between the defendants, with Louis James referring to Joseph Johnson having an “empire” in one.
During another exchange, the latter boasted “I’m the man in Liverpool, my b****cks are massive, billy big balls”. James told him in response “I’m the one in the underworld no one knows about”, before Joseph Johnson referred to him as the “Ronnie Biggs of the ticket office”.
One email showed the latter, labelled the “mastermind of the business”, offering tickets for home games against Burnley, Stoke City, Chelsea and West Ham United for £90, £125, £200 and £125 respectively. Away games at Everton and Manchester United were meanwhile advertised at prices of £250 and £400.
Data from StubHub relating to the same email address meanwhile showed that it had been involved in sales to the value of €598,746, equivalent to around £520,000 at the current exchange rate, between 2016 and 2018. Johnson’s PayPal account, relating to a hair extension business called Russian Locks, also received transfers amounting to £743,500 during the same period.
Of the £9 tickets, Ms Daley added: “Tickets for local supporters, priced to make football accessible to all, were being diverted and sold for highly inflated prices. That was the criminality, not that there was a genuine financial loss to Liverpool Football Club.”
The court meanwhile heard of one message sent by Smith to Joseph Johnson in October 2018, in which he said: “Do you know how much money is on the log from the beginning of the season until now? Drum roll, £305,457.81.”
Joseph Johnson outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Joseph Johnson, of Chelford Road in Eccleston, St Helens, ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position and two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation on the second day of the case. The 42-year-old and his co-defendants returned to the same court in order to be sentenced today, Wednesday.
Rice, aged 35 and of Mount Crescent in Kirkby, similarly admitted one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation on the day two of the trial. David Birrell, defending, said on his behalf: “There was no actual loss here. There was, I suppose, a risk of loss to the customers that they might lose money or be refused money. That was remote. These defendants offered a money back guarantee.
“This defendant has not reoffended in the five years since the offending behaviour and has, to his credit, made much progress in his life. He works for Opus Care Group. They provide care for young people. He performs voluntary and outreach work in the community. He is doing well professionally.
“Personally, he is in a stable relationship. They have three young boys. According to his fiancée, he dedicates his life to them. One of his sons is a talented footballer, enrolled in several elite academies. Mr Rice ferries him from training session to training session. His fiancée describes him as the absolute glue in their household, kind and caring and the best role model for their boys.
“During the covid pandemic, he was involved in providing food parcels to vulnerable people. More recently, he has, with others, organised a Christmas toy appeal.”
Liam Rice and Lee Smith outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Louis James, of Lapford Crescent in Kirkby, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position and two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation in advance of the trial. The 37-year-old’s counsel Damian Nolan said: “He was an employee at Liverpool FC. What he did was in gross breach of trust of the fact that employees were expected to comply with the rules of the football club.
“He accepts that he made money from that scheme. He accepts that others became involved. Those who did did so with their eyes wide open. He accepts that he made monies from it, a very moderate percentage of the overall revenue.
“This is, in many ways, a victimless crime. Anyone who dealt with them got their tickets. It is one of the biggest open secrets in attending football matches. Demand outstrips supply.
“It works in the theatre world, in any other sport. People go into it with their eyes wide open. There are no dissatisfied people. The customers get the product they have paid for. The club receive their revenue.
“This business is not the only one that operates at Anfield. Anyone who thinks it is utterly deluded. There is competition. People will go where the inflated price is less. The reality is that those who lived in an L postcode lost the opportunity to buy a ticket, and that is it. Liverpool Football Club have not lost a penny.
“He is in a long term relationship with his partner. She remains supportive of him. Perhaps more immediate is the effect upon his mum. He is a carer for his mum. She is generally chair or bedbound. His loss will be very difficult to replace.
“He is not defined by this. A wide, varied section of the community speak well of him. He is a man, effectively, of good character. He has stained his copybook. Obtaining employment will not be easy, but he can do it.
“This was a long time ago. The effect of the delay allows a defendant to demonstrate that they learned their ways. We submit that you do not need to send him immediately to custody today.”
Smith, aged 38 and of Moss Lane in Ormskirk, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position and one count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation. His barrister Holly Menary added: “He has prepared himself for the fact that he might not be coming home today.
“He is a father of five. He is a hands on and present dad and prides himself, most of all, on his happy family. He has assured me that he will never be in trouble again.”
James Johnson, of Westcombe Road in Anfield, meanwhile admitted conspiracy to commit fraud by abuse of position and one offence of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation. Bernice Campbell told the court in mitigation: “James Johnson is now 34 years old. At the time of initial start of the conspiracy, he was 23 years of age, with no previous convictions and one caution for an unlike offence.
“His life is now completely different, as one would perhaps expect. There is a lot of credit in how he has changed his life. He has a little boy now. He is a very responsible father. He has also looked after his mother and father. He is a working man and he also looks after others, with his own skills helping younger people to develop their lives.”
Ms Campbell meanwhile added of his dishonesty: “It was endemic. He was a man who was taken on with no contract, no training, nobody keeping an eye on him, and bad habits were passed on. He always told me that he did know it was illegal. People did sometimes have a blind eye.
“There has been no reoffending since this date, and that is to his credit. He was taken on as a young lad who used to show people around the museum. It was a little bit of pocket money rather than a big part of a conspiracy.”
Joseph Johnson’s representative Dominic Thomas meanwhile said during an earlier hearing: “There is another side to this defendant. He is lightly and not relevantly convicted. He has got two children. The eldest is nine, the youngest is six.
“Your honour will have seen that the defendant’s partner has recently had some very difficult medical circumstances in relation to partial sight, which has required the defendant, over the course of the last year or so, to look after her in a very practical sense, and with the great distress and fear that having something like that happen to you can cause. His parents have become increasingly fragile, and the need for him to go and help them has become greater than it was.
“He is a man involved in giving back to his community. He is involved in a number of charitable enterprises. During covid, he thinks he distributed about 1,000 meals to old people’s homes. That is the other side to the defendant to which I refer.”
Joseph Johnson outside Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Johnson nodded this afternoon as he was ultimately imprisoned for 54 months. Rice and Smith were meanwhile handed 34 months each, at which stage a woman left the public gallery in floods of tears.
James was sentenced to 28 months behind bars. But James Johnson was given a 21-month imprisonment suspended for two years with 150 hours of unpaid work and a two-month electronically monitored curfew from 11pm to 7am.
Sentencing, Judge David Swinnerton said: “You are businessmen, certainly you, Joseph Johnson, Liam Rice and Lee Smith. But it was a dishonest business, making large amounts of money from a dishonest enterprise. You were assisted in the running of that business by Louis James and, to a lesser extent, by James Johnson.
Liam Rice, of Mount Crescent in Kirkby, aged 37
“This seems to have started with a couple of people with a laptop in a bedroom. It became a much more sophisticated enterprise and went on for a number of years. By 2018, it is clear that very large numbers of tickets were being obtained fraudulently and being sold on for significant profit.
“There were various ways which, because you had a knowledge of the internal systems, because two of you were working there, enabled you to get tickets that you would not have otherwise got and sell them at inflated prices. That is how the business started.
“It has been pointed out that it must have been obvious to the buyers that they were not legitimate tickets. That is probably right. That does not alter fact that this was a dishonest business.
“There are a lot of people who want to come to Liverpool, ‘lets fly from Norway, I really want to see a game’. That is the sort of person who you were able to charge hundreds of pounds for tickets.
“Mr Rice, Mr Joseph Johnson, you have previously been involved in drug supply. It does show in you a willingness, a long standing one, a desire, perhaps, to make lots of money through illegal or dishonest means.
Lee Smith, of Moss Lane in Ormskirk, aged 38
“The prosecution describe you, Joseph Johnson, as the mastermind. You coordinated all of this. You are the principal figure in these conspiracies. You created Seatfinder UK.
“You did not do that alone. Liam Rice, you are described as a manager, overseeing operations and logistics. Lee Smith, again, you were managing logistics and tech.
“Louis James, you were the Liverpool Football Club employee. You were necessary to the early stages of these conspiracies. You abused that position as an employee of Liverpool Football Club to access and distribute tickets.
Louis James, of Lapford Crescent in Kirkby, aged 37
“James Johnson, you also were a Liverpool Football Club employee. You assisted in ticket acquisition and membership creation. You later worked, for relatively small wages, for Seatfinder UK.
“This was not a direct financial loss to Liverpool Football Club. Tickets were sold at the price on the ticket. If there was a £9 ticket for local supporters, Liverpool Football Club got £9. You then sold those tickets for a vastly inflated price.
“The real loss was to genuine fans. Tickets meant for local supporters, priced to make football accessible to more people, were diverted and sold at significantly inflated prices.
“I think it does damage the reputation of football in general when tickets are available only at vastly inflated prices. That is hard to quantify and measure. What is not as hard to measure is the huge and dishonest gains for you. There were huge profits involved in this.
“There has been considerable delay here. Arrests took place in 2019. The criminality seems to have taken place into 2020. Partly, that is due to covid. Partly, that is down to the amount of material to be looked at. Partly, that is because you pleaded not guilty, initially.
“But, even taking all of that into account, there is still a long period in which you have waited and got on with your lives, in many of your cases, raising children and helping in the community and, very importantly, not offending. I will therefore be reducing each sentence significantly to reflect that delay and the mitigation in what you have been doing in the intervening years.”
Joseph Johnson, Rice and Smith were also banned from acting as company directors for eight years. Jonathan Egan, senior district crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service Mersey Cheshire, said following the hearing: “These defendants worked together to obtain huge numbers of Liverpool Football Club tickets, meant for those living locally or genuine football club members, to make huge profits by reselling them at vastly inflated prices.
Joseph Johnson, of Chelford Road in Eccleston, St Helens, aged 37
“Their so-called business grew and grew and went from being the equivalent of a market stall to a multi-million-pound enterprise with a base in Dubai. Even after Louis James and James Johnson lost their jobs in the LFC ticket office, the scam continued. But their greed caught up with them in the end, and their fraud came to light.
“Most of them refused to accept their culpability, even after arrest and charge and, apart from Louis James, claimed they didn’t know the tickets were being sold at a profit. They have now been sentenced and have jail terms to contend with. They all have criminal records as fraudsters.”