Fury among families after senior Hillsborough officers absolved by police watchdog
A 12-year investigation into the Hillsborough disaster by the police watchdog has concluded that no senior South Yorkshire police officers were guilty of misconduct for falsely blaming misbehaviour by Liverpool supporters.
That police case was wholly rejected in 2016 by the jury at the second inquest, who determined that no behaviour of Liverpool supporters contributed to the disaster, which happened on 15 April 1989 at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium.
The jury found that the 97 people who died due to a crush on the Leppings Lane terraces were unlawfully killed, as a result of gross negligence manslaughter by the police officer in command, Ch Supt David Duckenfield.
Bereaved families of the 97 and survivors have fought a decades-long campaign for the truth and accountability, and have always protested that the South Yorkshire police mounted a false case to minimise its culpability, and blame the victims.
The conclusion of the investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which started in 2012, has coincided with delays to the government's promised 'Hillsborough law', which would impose a duty of candour on police and public officials, for which families have also long campaigned.
Louise Brookes, whose brother Andrew, 26, was one of the 97 people killed, said she was 'livid' at the IOPC's conclusions. She said that in 2021, South Yorkshire police and West Midlands police, which was brought in after the disaster to investigate, agreed a settlement with families and survivors for misfeasance in a public office, based on a claim that the forces perpetrated a cover-up.
'It feels like a cover-up of a cover-up,' Brookes said.
In a letter notifying bereaved families of its findings, the IOPC did find Duckenfield and three other senior officers culpable of gross misconduct for failures at the semi-final. Duckenfield was also found to have committed gross misconduct for the lie he told at 3.15pm as people were dying, falsely telling his senior officer, the assistant chief constable Walter Jackson, and football officials that Liverpool supporters had forced open an exit gate.
In fact Duckenfield had himself ordered the gate to be opened, to relieve a crush outside the Leppings Lane end turnstiles. After an independent police investigation for the IOPC termed Operation Resolve, 11 separate elements of gross misconduct by Duckenfield were found, including for ordering the opening of the gate, and failing to safely direct the people who came through it.
Duckenfield did not order the closure of a tunnel leading to crowded central 'pens' on the terrace, and the lethal crush developed after people who came through the exit gate went into those pens, rather than to the sides.
Jackson was found culpable of gross misconduct for failures of planning and his response to the disaster; the former superintendent Roger Marshall for crowd management outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles and for asking Duckenfield to open the exit gate; and gross misconduct was also found by the former superintendent Bernard Murray, Duckenfield's second-in-command in the police control room.
Duckenfield was prosecuted for gross negligence manslaughter after the inquest verdict; he was acquitted in 2019.
The IOPC said in the letter it had found no case to answer against any senior South Yorkshire police officers who were investigated for whether they gave inaccurate, false or deliberately misleading evidence or 'irrelevant criticism of fans' behaviour' after the disaster.
Senior officers were also cleared over the instruction given to officers not to write their accounts of the day in their official police notebooks, and a subsequent process of amending the accounts made by officers. One officer, the former detective chief inspector Alan Foster, was found culpable of gross misconduct, after an investigation into whether senior officers put 'undue pressure' on some other officers who refused to make alterations to their original accounts.
A complaint was upheld against one officer on duty in the control box, the former police constable Trevor Bichard. He was found to have deleted from the evidence provided to the 1989 inquiry by Lord Justice Taylor a log entry which recorded that at 2:55pm an officer had requested the tunnel leading to the central pens be closed. Mervyn Jones, the then assistant chief constable of West Midlands police, was also found culpable of gross misconduct for instructing the deletion of 'policy files', and retaining policy books 'in his personal possession' after he retired.
No officers will face misconduct proceedings, the IOPC has previously said, because they have all retired. The findings against officers, which include dozens more individual complaints currently being notified to families, are opinions of the IOPC.
The IOPC has explained of its findings: 'Like the [2012] Hillsborough Independent Panel report and the inquests, we found no evidence to support police accounts to the media, the Taylor inquiry and both sets of inquests, which suggested that the behaviour of supporters caused or in any way contributed to the disaster.'
However in a letter to families last month, the watchdog said that while South Yorkshire police did seek to 'deflect the blame from themselves', with no duty of candour required the force 'was entitled, within the law at the time, to present its 'best case' and be selective with the evidence it presented'.
Keir Starmer promised at Labour's conference in Liverpool in September to introduce the Hillsborough law by this month's 36th anniversary of the disaster, but the deadline will be missed, as families have argued that the proposals do not deliver the required duty of candour. Starmer cancelled a visit to Liverpool last week where he was due to announce the new law to families.
Charlotte Hennessy, who was six when her father, Jimmy, 29, was unlawfully killed at Hillsborough, said she was 'frustrated and very disappointed' after learning of the delay.
'In my opinion, the prime minister has used the deaths of the 97, their anniversary and the Hillsborough law, to gain himself votes,' she said.
'There just seems to be this continual pattern, where he says things and then he takes them back. And to do that on the back of a Hillsborough anniversary – I'm appalled by it.'
Starmer's spokesperson said: 'We remain fully committed to bringing in a Hillsborough law which will include a legal duty of candour for public servants and criminal sanctions for those who refuse to comply. We're working on the bill at pace, and we'll set out next steps shortly.'
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