Hillsborough Untold: Aftermath of a disaster

by Norman Bettison

  I am eternally sorry for those arrangements. I offer this regret and an apology as a middle-ranking South Yorkshire Police officer who was, twenty-seven years ago, ignorant about most of the arrangements put in place in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Objectively, one might therefore conclude that it is not my place to apologise … but someone should and I do.

  The Liverpool homecoming, by contrast, was warm and familiar. Liverpool has, I recall from a survey in the early twenty-first century, the highest proportion of church-going citizens of any city in England. There are two cathedrals in Liverpool. Firstly, an imposing Anglican Cathedral, the largest Anglican church in Christendom and the kind of church that inspires a sense of awesome wonder, where both visitor and God feel more important and closer to one another. This was to be the place where families were to gather for the publication of the Hillsborough Panel Report in 2012.

  Then, within sight of the Anglican Cathedral, there is the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King. A cathedral of such contemporary circular design that it gives rise to the affectionate Liverpool nicknames of ‘Paddy’s Wigwam’ and ‘The Mersey Funnel’. Two cathedrals are joined, as they say in Liverpool, by hope: the two great buildings stand, like bookends, at opposite ends of Hope Street.

  Both cathedrals, and most of the local churches on Mersey side, threw open their doors, and the congregations their hearts, to the grieving and the confused. A televised requiem Mass held in Liverpool on the Sunday night, and attended by over 3,000 people, was a moving testament to neighbourliness and humanity.

  It should be acknowledged that there were dead and bereaved, and injured and grieving, in towns other than Liverpool. The last day for some had begun in Derbyshire; in London; in Staffordshire; and even in Sheffield. But Liverpool became the spiritual home, and so it remains, for all who were hurt at, and by, Hillsborough.

  The City Council made resources available immediately and without question of cost. Social services; emergency financial relief where necessary; and, subsequently, legal support to represent the interests of those hurt by Hillsborough. An aid fund was set up and it grew quickly to a substantial sum.

  Anfield and Goodison Park are the third and fourth cathedrals in Liverpool. Saturday Mass and the occasional midweek evensong attract bigger crowds than the two on Hope Street. They too threw open their doors to the lost souls who could make no sense of Saturday’s tragic events. It is estimated that over a half a million people visited Anfield in the week that followed seeking solace, love and the companionship of their wider family.

  It was fitting that, on Saturday 15 April 1989, Everton had won the ‘other’ semi-final match against Norwich and, three weeks later, Liverpool FC beat Nottingham Forest in the rearranged tie to set up a Merseyside FA Cup Final – a ‘friendly final’. The score didn’t matter. It didn’t really matter who carried home the cup to Liverpool. What mattered was the provision of a suitable venue for 82,000 neighbours to come together in shared grief and a spirit of renewal.

  In the days and weeks after the disaster, Liverpool, both as a city and as a football community, had demonstrated how to look after ‘its own’. Whilst many Sheffield residents had responded to the needs of people in the immediate aftermath of Hillsborough, the whole homecoming experience was in stark contrast to the torments the bereaved had suffered in Yorkshire.

  If the poor treatment in that first twenty-four hours had been the full extent of the hurt imposed upon the bereaved, then the failings of the police and other institutions in Sheffield might by now have been overwritten. Never forgotten, but diffused in the shade of the love and support demonstrated by the people and the institutions of Merseyside. But it wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning of their anguish.

  The issuing by anonymous officials, in a foreign town, of ninety-six approvals for burial or cremation was a task that seemed to be once more tied up with bureaucracy. There was to be a public inquiry back in Sheffield, and an investigation by people from the West Midlands. This all seemed to be disconnected from home and familiarity. There would also have to be an inquest at some stage after the public inquiry and that too, it was decided on high, would be in Sheffield, overseen by a Sheffield coroner sitting with a South Yorkshire jury.

  Most of these arrangements had been put in place within forty-eight hours of the disaster occurring. The inquest would not begin for more than a year but all the other tasks were begun immediately. They were procedural arrangements that were being done to the bereaved families, not with them.

  Even then, you know, it might have been possible to find a way through these callous processes without lasting injury being caused (leaving aside the verdict of the jury in the first inquest, to which I shall return later). But then, on Wednesday 19 April 1989, The Sun went to print with its front-page headline: ‘The Truth’ – a headline that was created, recklessly, by The Sun’s editorial team late on Tuesday evening after the copy had been filed by the journalist Harry Arnold. Arnold had researched and produced a story but had doubts about the veracity of some of the source material. The editor decided to publish and be damned. He was, and he deserved to be. The Sun infamously besmirched the whole Liverpool fan base by accusing their number, amongst other despicable acts, of picking the pockets of victims and urinating on the bodies and the ‘brave cops’. I have never seen a shred of evidence to support such shameless accusations. The headline of ‘The Truth’ sat above a great lie. In and amongst this vile account, anonymous South Yorkshire Police officers were quoted as the source for some of the allegations and the secretary of the Police Federation (the Trade Union for junior officers) is quoted as saying: ‘I don’t doubt these stories are true.’

  One long-retired officer has admitted at the recent inquests that on the night of the disaster he gossiped in a bar about mainly second-hand information in a way which got into the hands of a local MP and then a news agency. He was a Police Inspector speaking on his own account, not an officially sanctioned spokesperson. The gossip had little credibility, it had no place being published without verification, and it created an injury that would never heal.

  Those affected most deeply by the disaster and who were isolated from the whirl of post-disaster activity would have every reason to wonder just what was going on in Sheffield. Were those South Yorkshire Police voices, quoted in The Sun, speaking on behalf of the force? Was that to be the Sheffield version of events? Those who had been there knew that it wasn’t ‘The Truth’. It was, in fact, a travesty.

  The Taylor Inquiry, even though it was conducted in Sheffield, made it absolutely clear where the blame lay for the ninety-five deaths that were registered at that time and for the hundreds of physical and psychological injuries sustained at Hillsborough. It was just sixteen weeks after the disaster when Lord Justice Taylor, after hearing 174 witnesses give sworn testimony and reading hundreds more written accounts, stated clearly that the cause of the terrible tragedy was mainly due to a failure of police control.

  It was a vindication for all who had been out-of-town visitors to Hillsborough on that April afternoon. Most hadn’t witnessed any misbehaviour by Liverpool fans, and there was certainly nothing that resembled the hooliganism familiar to all who followed football in the 1980s. The abiding memory for most is of football fans reacting as quick, if not quicker, than the public safety professionals to the unfolding disaster and doing all they could to help. The Sun was wrong. Their story wasn’t the truth after all. Those gossipers were exposed. The blame for the ninety-five deaths, and the countless injuries, that were known of at that time was ‘mainly’ due to a ‘failure of police control’. Lord Justice Taylor had said so at paragraph 278 and no one needed to read beyond that.

  If we could stop the clock on the afternoon of Friday 4 August 1989, the day that Lord Justice Taylor delivered his interim report, then the bereaved families and the wider Hillsborough ‘family’ might have felt content with the way that the post-disaster wheel was turning. The test cases for civil litig
ation could now begin.

  The fight for justice was never about money, but the judgment of the civil court is one of the ways that the state recognises when, and to what degree, someone has been wronged. The people who had lost a source of income, and the people who had simply lost the most precious person in their lives, would now be able to claim compensation. The people with physical injuries were the next most clear-cut of claimants. Then there would be the psychological trauma cases. Some of these claims would arise from novel and indirect circumstances. For example, the police officers who were traumatised by what they witnessed at the fences, or the people who saw terrible events unfold on television. Each would stake their claim. Their claims would all be against South Yorkshire Police. For it was they that were held to be ‘mainly’ to blame by the judicial inquiry.

  The test cases progressed, and they generally found in favour of the plaintiffs. One of the anomalies of civil litigation that has always stuck in the craw of some bereaved families is the differential categories of compensation recognised by the law. If someone was a breadwinner and is precluded from earning in the future then they can be awarded much more compensation than the family who have lost a child, even if the first claimant is alive and relatively well.

  Some South Yorkshire police officers, against the wishes of the Chief Constable and many colleagues in the force it must be said, made claims for psychological trauma and loss of earnings in being unable to return to frontline work again. There are examples of some who were financially compensated more generously than the legal tariffs would allow for the parents of a deceased dependant. At a human level, that doesn’t seem right. The law is sometimes rigid and rule-bound and can often seem to act contrary to common sense.

  ‘The police’ caused this disaster and then ‘they’ get paid out more than a grieving family? What’s going on? Rack that injustice up with the expanding list of grievances felt by the bereaved and their supporters.

  The South Yorkshire Police Authority insurers, MMI, accepted liability and agreed settlements that were reported to amount to almost £20 million. It was a sum that would contribute towards the demise of the insurance company in 1993. They were looking to recover a part of these costs from others criticised by Lord Justice Taylor: Sheffield Wednesday Football Club; Eastwood and Partners, the stadium engineers; and Sheffield City Council, who issued a defective safety certificate permitting the event to be staged at Hillsborough Stadium without appropriate measures to protect those in attendance. There were no contributions sought from any other parties. The only parties that were enjoined in these proceedings were those institutions that were each roundly criticised in Lord Justice Taylor’s interim report. The fact that there were other parties criticised by Taylor as contributing to the causes of the disaster is, even now, not a familiar part of the popular narrative. It confuses the simple, one-dimensional picture of where blame resides.

  It is sometimes implied today that South Yorkshire Police were trying to wriggle out of their responsibilities in these contributions proceedings. Such inferences can only be drawn by those who are blind to the careful judgment of Lord Justice Taylor. The police were ‘mainly to blame’ for the disaster, but so were others, he said. Those others ultimately accepted, in an out-of-court settlement, a part of the liability and made contributions to the costs that were carried, unilaterally, by MMI.

  By 1990, two important post-disaster procedures were running in parallel. The results of each are perceived to have denied the Hillsborough families the justice they have sought for a quarter of a century. The West Midlands Police completed their criminal investigation in 1990 and submitted their file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). At the same time, the South Yorkshire Coroner was contemplating how to conduct the necessary inquests into the deaths of the ninety-five (Tony Bland would survive until 1993).

  The Coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, had a dilemma. It is a dilemma with many precedents. A key question for all coroners is about when to hold an inquest if there are criminal matters that are being considered in relation to anyone who might be a significant witness at the inquest. The driver of the car that kills a pedestrian, for example. The way that coroners usually deal with this dilemma is by staying the proceedings until the criminal matters have been resolved. The disadvantage is that it delays the process for distressed families but, on the other hand, it generally makes for a more streamlined inquest when it is finally convened.

  Lord Justice Goldring had to address the same dilemma at the start of these more recent proceedings. It was submitted that it would be unfair, to David Duckenfield and others, to take evidence, including theirs, in a court whilst the question of criminal proceedings was, once again, under active consideration. The Coroner noted that the deaths occurred twenty-five years ago. The families were not getting any younger and some of them had passed away in that passage of time. He acknowledged the legal difficulties that might ensue but, on balance, he wanted to start the renewed inquests as soon as possible and decided to go ahead.

  One of the potential consequences for a Coroner’s Court, in deciding to go ahead before CPS have reached a decision, is that any witnesses may assert their lawful right not to incriminate themselves and therefore decline to answer some or all questions. Neither David Duckenfield nor anyone else from South Yorkshire Police raised any objection to giving testimony on oath at Lord Goldring’s inquest, despite a criminal investigation being conducted in parallel.

  Coroner Stefan Popper was faced with this same procedural dilemma in 1990 and arrived at a novel and controversial solution. Instead of applying the typical caution of coroners and staying the proceedings, or adopting the bold approach of Lord Justice Goldring by starting proceedings in the face of potential difficulties down the line, Dr Popper instead proposed a third way. He would hear the ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ evidence about the ninety-five deaths at a preliminary stage and then he would adjourn the proceedings until after the CPS decisions in order to hear testimony as to ‘how’ the deceased had met their deaths.

  These two parts of the inquisitorial process became known, respectively, as ‘ninety-five mini inquests’ and the ‘Generic Inquest’. I shan’t seek to explain the justification for the Coroner’s decision or some of the arbitrary rulings that he gave along the way. For example, his ruling that he would only admit testimony about events up to 3.15 p.m., as he accepted preliminary medical evidence that people were either dead or irreversibly dying by that time. Whilst his procedure, rulings and eventual verdict have been overturned by the High Court, which ruled in 2012 that there should be new inquests, all but the fiercest critics accept that he was acting in good faith in trying to move on a process in which delay is so often a source of concern for the families involved.

  Indeed, there is evidence that the Coroner’s proposals about how he might open the inquisitorial process in this limited way were warmly welcomed by the Hillsborough Steering Committee (HSC), the collective body of lawyers representing the bereaved families and the injured. Dr Popper met with Doug Fraser of the HSC on 26 February 1990 to discuss the way forward. Mr Fraser, on behalf of all those represented, agreed that anything that could be done quickly to ‘get information to the families in a non-adversarial way would be warmly welcomed’.

  The mini inquests might have been proposed with the best of intentions, but they left the families with a deep sense of dissatisfaction. Their loved one was described at the inquest, in life and in death, by an unfamiliar third party, a West Midlands Police Officer. The family had no part in the proceedings, and questioning of witnesses was limited. All ninety-five mini inquests were concluded in thirteen days, between 18 April and 4 May 1990. The Coroner, armed chiefly with the West Midlands Police summaries, raced through several individual deaths each day. Legal representation was prohibitively expensive for individual families, who were therefore observers of, rather than participants in, the procedures. The bereaved families would feel that these mini inquests had been conducted superficially
and with no opportunity for their concerns to be addressed. They received the impression that their loved one was simply a number in a bureaucratic process.

  The families were given reason to believe that any inadequacies in the ‘mini inquests’ could be addressed in the resumed ‘generic’ inquest stage that would follow the decision on criminal proceedings. The CPS decision was published on 30 August 1990. Their press release read as follows:

  Following a lengthy and detailed investigation by the West Midlands Police and close consideration of Lord Justice Taylor’s report, the Director of Public Prosecutions has concluded that there is no evidence upon which a prosecution for manslaughter or other criminal offence may be brought against the South Yorkshire Police, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, Mssrs Eastwood and Partners [the consulting engineers who designed the Leppings Lane stadium configuration] or Sheffield City Council in connection with the disaster at Hillsborough Football Stadium Sheffield on 15 April 1989.

  The Director has also concluded that there is insufficient evidence to justify the institution of proceedings against any officer in the South Yorkshire Police force or any other person for any offence.

  The decision enabled Dr Popper to resume his inquest into the deaths of the ninety-five. It is clear that he did call and re-call some witnesses in the resumed inquest with the intention of addressing some points of concern or contention raised by the families. It is also clear, however, that this generic phase of the inquest failed to satisfy everyone.

  There were two major constraints imposed by Dr Popper that were each an impediment to meeting the needs of the families. Firstly, the 3.15 p.m. cut-off for all evidence. It meant that families who noted that death was certified at a later time, and who may have noticed conflicting or ambiguous evidence in witness testimony or video footage, could not get to the bottom of their concerns.

  Secondly, the determination of Dr Popper to keep the generic part of the inquest relatively short. At one time, prior to the start of the resumed proceedings, he had expressed the hope that it might start in early November 1990 and be finalised by Christmas. In fact, this phase began on 19 November 1990 and concluded on 28 March 1991. Whilst this inquest was, at the time, the longest on record, it had only sat for thirteen days at the ‘mini inquests’ stage and for fifteen weeks when it resumed. In total, fewer days than the number of deceased.