Lucas Akins is playing football in League One. In a few weeks, he could be in prison

The right winger in the bright yellow shirt cuts inside, switches the ball onto his left foot and unleashes a shot that draws a smart save and a roar from his home fans.

Mansfield Town are a goal down to Charlton Athletic in League One, English football’s third tier, but Lucas Akins is leading the fightback. Shortly after, he is booked for dragging Josh Edwards to the ground as the full-back bursts past him. “Go on, Lucas!” bellows a supporter in the Ian Greaves Stand.

It is, in many ways, a typically pugnacious lower-league match — all fierce tackles and a clattering atmosphere created by the 7,000 fans in the One Call Stadium, doing their best to fend off the creeping chill in the evening air.

Yet there is one very abnormal subtext. Later this month, Akins could be in prison.

On March 5, Akins, a 36-year-old journeyman who has played for seven professional clubs across his 18-year career, admitted to causing the death of Adrian Daniel when his car hit the cyclist at a junction near the Yorkshire town of Huddersfield in March 2022.

Daniel, 33, died from his injuries 10 days later. Last month, Akins admitted to causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving during a hearing at Leeds Crown Court.

Hours afterwards, he was selected to play for Mansfield in a goalless draw with Wigan Athletic, and he has since played a further four times for the club, who have refused to officially comment on the matter.

Mansfield have another four matches when Akins could be selected before he will learn his sentence at Leeds Crown Court on April 24.

According to the Sentencing Council, the maximum penalty for causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving is five years in jail. That maximum term is usually reserved for cases where blame is exceptionally high. A guilty plea, if early enough, can reduce the sentence by up to a third.

The offender will also be banned from driving and have to take an extended test to get their licence back.

Mansfield manager Nigel Clough’s last public comments on Akins’ case came on March 11 when BBC Radio Nottingham asked about social media criticism of his decision to keep playing him.

“I don’t see social media, so I haven’t heard or seen one thing,” he said. “If I start picking the team based on what is said on social media, then that will be going away from our main principles.

“It’s incredibly difficult, but he has been dealing with it for the last two or three years and all we can do is give him every bit of support.”

Nigel Clough has stood by Lucas Akins (Michael Regan / Getty Images)

Asked later on the evening of the Wigan game, Clough told BBC Radio Nottingham: “We can’t comment on it, I’m afraid. We’ve known about it for some time, it’s not just happened, but we’re not in a position to comment.”

It is a tragic story, particularly for Daniel’s family, and the implications for Akins could be seismic. Yet watching him during Tuesday’s game, you would never have known it.

After the final whistle, Akins applauded the fans and shook hands with the opposition players, embracing a couple of them. He walked off the field deep in conversation with team-mate Caylan Vickers, 20, before high-fiving a steward and disappearing down the tunnel.

Akins may be in the twilight of his career, but he remains a significant figure at Mansfield. He has started 25 league matches this season and has helped re-establish the club in the third tier. This is their first season at this level since 2003 and, despite Tuesday’s defeat, it is likely they will remain in the division next season, sitting eight points clear of the relegation places.

Akins has been a part of their stability and when he reached his 700th career game in February, before the case became public, Clough praised his midfielder.

“To reach 700 appearances at the age of 35 is a great testament to his fitness as much as anything, and his attitude,” he told the Mansfield and Ashfield Chad newspaper.

“This last pre-season, he was right up there at the front of everything, all of the running. He is a very good professional and a good athlete.”

The Akins case has brought a rare and unwelcome burst of publicity to Mansfield, a club that has spent most of its 128-year history in the lower reaches of the Football League and firmly in the spotlight of bigger local rivals, such as Nottingham Forest to the south and the two Sheffield clubs, United and Wednesday, to the north.

But despite the club’s virtual silence on the situation, Akins’ continued presence on the team has remained a contentious issue among Mansfield’s supporters.

“It has divided people,” says Mansfield season ticket holder Kieran Musgrove, 25. “He’s admitted it, so we’re all waiting to hear what sort of sentence he gets.

“I would have preferred it if the club had made a proper statement about it to show what side of it they’re on. They’ve known about it for a long time. It was a mistake to select him on the day he admitted it. There was a moral problem there.”

For others, playing Akins does not represent an ethical red line crossed.

“I’ve got no issue with him playing,” says 72-year-old season ticket holder Melvin Piasecki as he makes his way to the ground. “What’s the sense in him not doing his job until he is sentenced?

Akins has been at Mansfield since 2022 (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

“I understand the family of the man who died might have a different view, but by the law, he has been free to continue working and I think that’s right.

“He has got to do something. Until we find out exactly what happened, as fans we’ve been in the dark about it.”

Supporters of some of Mansfield’s opponents have not all been as ambivalent. “I remember not long after it came out, we went to watch them away,” recalls Piasecki. “The home fans were chanting ‘murderer’ at him and they asked them to stop over the PA system.”

James Quilliam, who also follows Mansfield home and away, says many of his fellow supporters only became aware of the situation when reports emerged that Akins admitted the charge last month.

“The players have known a lot longer than we fans have,” he says. “Everyone was talking about it at work when the news story appeared.

“It’s a very weird situation, but whatever happens, I don’t think he’ll be at the club next season. He’s mainly played because others have been injured. He’s not a first pick anymore.”

Akins is from Huddersfield but has won a handful of caps for Grenada, who he qualifies for through his mother. His latest international appearance came in a 5-0 defeat against Russia on March 19. He played the full game against Charlton, which Mansfield lost 2-1.

It is not the first time a footballer has played for his club after pleading guilty to an offence. Last month, it emerged that Welsh side Barry Town’s vice captain, 24-year-old Evan Press, played for them after pleading guilty to dealing cocaine. The club told Wales Online they only became aware of Press’ crimes on the day he was sentenced to two and a half years in jail.

Former West Ham United and Chelsea defender Kurt Zouma continued to play in the Premier League while awaiting trial on animal abuse charges. He later pleaded guilty to kicking and slapping his cat but continued to be picked for West Ham. He was sentenced to 180 hours of community service.

Kurt Zouma played for West Ham after pleading guilty to animal cruelty charges (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)

In March 2015, midfielder Adam Johnson was suspended by his club Sunderland following his arrest on suspicion of having sexual activity with an underage girl, who was 15. He was charged a month later but played regularly for the club while on police bail, having initially pleaded not guilty. He was sacked by Sunderland in February 2016 when he changed his plea to guilty. He was sentenced to six years in prison, serving three before being released in 2019.

Sports law experts contacted by The Athletic expressed surprise that Akins was selected after his guilty plea.

“Causing the death of another person is one of the most serious crimes someone can be charged with,” says Jibreel Tramboo, a sports law barrister at Church Court Chambers. “My reaction is that Mansfield owed a level of diligence to the integrity of the sport. To select him for a game on the day he pleaded guilty was ethically wrong.

“Before that point when he pleaded guilty, it is more of a grey area. I’m a big advocate of saying you cannot assume his guilt prior to then, and so there is a scale of tolerance that he is owed until then.

“But once he has pleaded guilty, he should not have played. If he had been playing for a Premier League club and pleaded guilty, I doubt he would have still been picked. In the Football League, he has likely not been subject to the same level of scrutiny.”

Last year, Championship club Norwich City continued to select Republic of Ireland defender Shane Duffy after he was charged with, and subsequently admitted, drink driving.

The club launched an internal disciplinary case, but the centre-back was not suspended and remained part of the squad. He was subsequently banned from driving for three years and ordered to pay £27,000.

Shane Duffy remained with Norwich’s squad despite pleading guilty to drink driving (Stephen Pond / Getty Images)

“Some employers take a more forgiving view and want to help rehabilitate a person, while others decide they should be punished,” says sports lawyer Dan Chapman. “I don’t think it is so unusual that Lucas Akins continued to play for Mansfield before he pleaded guilty. What is very unusual, it seems to me, is that they still played him after that.

“I am struggling to think of another club to have played a player in those circumstances, but we are not privy to what he told the club about the circumstances and why they have chosen to stand by him.

“Under most standard playing contracts, they would have been entitled at the stage of his guilty plea to terminate his contract as gross misconduct, but decided not to. They might want to wait until he is sentenced and feel it is inappropriate to act before then.”

It is unlikely Akins will be a Mansfield player next season either way. His contract expires in the summer and regardless of his sentence, it is not known if the club will offer him a new one.

Clough, who also worked with Akins at Burton Albion, clearly appreciates what he brings on the field. Clough said in a press conference that playing 700 professional games was “a great testament to his fitness as much as anything, and his attitude. He is a team player”.

The Athletic has attempted to contact the family of Adrian Daniel, who got married a year before the crash that killed him, but has not received a reply.

While Akins waits to hear what form of justice he will face, life and football go on.

(Top photo: George Wood/Getty Images)