Anti-vaccination protesters who attempted to “serve papers” on ex-footballer Alan Shearer dropped them off at the wrong house.
The former England and Newcastle United captain last week urged people to get the booster in a video promoted by the Premier League.
In the clip, Shearer, who played against Celtic in his testimonial match in 2006, said: “We all want to keep safe on a matchday and the best way we can protect ourselves and other people is to get vaccinated.”
His stance led anti-vaccination protesters to film themselves on Wednesday outside an address near Newcastle which they believed to be his family home.
In the video they shared on social media, three men and a woman, plus someone recording the scene, gathered outside a gated property and after pressing an electronic buzzer, one of them posted documents into an external letterbox.
It is unclear what the papers contained, but anti-vaccination protesters routinely share templates of supposed legal documents which they film themselves depositing.
The man who posted the documents says on the video: “Everyone is going to get this, every celebrity, sick of yous.
“Just causing more trouble for us, lies, all lying.
“That’s the truth in that letterbox there, in Alan Shearer’s f****** house.”
But a commenter on the group’s Facebook post suggested Shearer no longer lived at the property.
And a local person who has seen the video told the PA News agency: “That’s an old address they have for him.”
Northumbria Police said it had no involvement in the incident.
Previous targets of anti-vaccination protestors’ supposed legal papers include hospitals and the broadcaster Jeremy Vine.
Lawyer Adam Wagner, a human rights expert and commentator on Covid legislation, poured scorn on the anti-vaccination protesters’ claims of using the law.
The Doughty Street barrister said: “It is difficult to overemphasise how spurious it all is.
“It is wrong and should not be indulged by anyone.
“This is so far down into the depths of legal fantasy, people should not be doing it, no-one should be sharing it.
“People who might genuinely have issues with vaccination should not be taken in by this.”
He said people who believed these documents had a basis in law might as well be “dressing up as Professor Dumbledore and saying magical spells”.
Later, Gary Lineker tweeted about the incident saying: “Wrong house, wrong cause, all kinds of wrong.”
Earlier this week former Prime Minister Tony Blair, a Newcastle United fan, said people who are still unvaccinated are “idiots”.
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