After 32 years, 601 people associated with the Hillsborough Disaster in Sheffield, UK in 1989 have finally received compensation from the West Midlands and South Yorkshire Police forces. The Hillsborough Disaster was a crowd crush during a football match, in which 97 people died. It was later found to be the fault of the police, but was the subject of a large police cover-up. Three men allegedly involved with this cover-up have been acquitted of charges relating to the perversion of the course of justice.
THE HILLSBOROUGH DISASTER
The Hillsborough Disaster occurred during a football match between Liverpool FC and Nottingham Forest on 15 April 1989. An influx of Liverpool fans into the standing-only stalls in the Leppings Lane stand of Sheffield’s Hillsborough Stadium caused overcrowding of the pens. This overcrowding resulted in 96 deaths and 766 injuries – the highest death toll in British sporting history. A recent coroner ruling confirmed a 2021 death as the 97th fatality when Andrew Devine died in July 2021 from aspiration pneumonia, the result of a brain injury resulting from oxygen deprivation and injuries at Hillsborough.
The 1990 Taylor Inquiry Report on the incident found that the police had neglected their duty by opening all of the gates in an attempt to ease overcrowding, subsequently leading to the crush in the pens as fans rushed in. The police subsequently fed the press stories which were found by the inquest to be false. They blamed the crush on Liverpool supporters – alleging it was due to their hooliganism and drunkenness. The impact of this has persisted even after Lord Justice Taylor’s report, which found no fault on the side of the supporters, and failure of control by South Yorkshire Police. A 2009 Independent Panel resulted in similar findings, and a second coroner’s inquest in 2016 found the 96 supporters were unlawfully killed due to gross negligence by the police and ambulance services. However, besides a single conviction to the stadium’s health and safety officer (resulting in a £6500 fine), all prosecutions have failed.
THE MOST RECENT TRIAL
Most recently, two retired police officers – Donald Denton and Alan Foster – and an ex-solicitor – Peter Metcalf – were tried for perverting the course of justice. They stood accused of altering police statements to mitigate the damage to South Yorkshire Police and conceal their involvement in the aftermath of the disaster. They were thus charged with perverting the court of justice.
However, the judge, Mr Justice William Davis, found there was no course of public justice to pervert, because the Taylor Inquiry, in relation to which the altered records were submitted by the accused, was a public, not a judicial, inquiry. It therefore did not represent a court of law, which would be a prerequisite to finding perversion of justice. The fact it was a public inquiry has been clarified over a series of legal rulings over the years and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were aware of this before this trial commenced, as there was a similar ruling in a 2018 trial related to the Hillsborough disaster. The CPS instead tried to argue that everyone involved would have known that formal proceedings would follow after the Taylor Inquiry, but the judge refused to put this case before a jury.
This result has potentially worrying impacts going forward. Lord Justice Taylor was a senior judge, in charge of an inquiry concerning the accountability of public services in the most fatal sporting disaster in history. It is in the public interest to submit the police actions in this disaster to scrutiny, to ensure that such disasters do not happen again and to provide those touched by such events with closure and justice. Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who has a special interest in the case as he was born in Merseyside, acknowledged; “if public servants can provide selective or misleading information to an inquiry and an inquest and face no consequences, the implications for public accountability are very serious”. This much has already been demonstrated by the current situation, where in 32 years there has been little closure and no justice for families.
SETTLEMENT
Hillsborough families have found more success under the civil legal system. West Midlands and South Yorkshire Police forces agreed to pay damages to 601 survivors and family members. This is intended to compensate survivors’ injuries and psychiatric treatment, and to signify a bereavement payment to the families of the deceased. A spokesman for Saunders Law, the lead solicitors on the group litigation brought by survivors and their families, claimed that the settlement of these claims “marks the end of an unparalleled and extraordinary fight for justice by the victims and their families…we trust that this settlement will put an end to any fresh attempts to rewrite the record and wrongly claim that there was no cover-up”.
INSUFFICIENT EFFORTS
However, after 32 years’ of campaigning, this settlement appears too little too late. Saunders’ spokesperson also said there had been an “almost complete failure of the justice system to deliver justice” to the victims and their families. While there has been an apology and acknowledgement of fault, supported by the recent civil settlement, justice has not been delivered. Through numerous inquiries and cases, the extent of the fault on the part of the police has been demonstrated and the fans who were initially blamed have been absolved. However, the recent criminal case was likely to be the last chance to hold those responsible for the Hillsborough disaster accountable, as acknowledged by Margaret Aspinall, who lost her son. She agreed it was insufficient, saying “we’ve got death certificates with 96 unlawfully killed, but not one person has yet been held into account”.
Andy Burnham has been lobbying for a “Hillsborough Law” since he was a Member of Parliament for Leigh. This law would compel public institutions to tell the full truth, with “candour and frankness” in any kind of inquiry or proceedings, as presently there is no obligation to tell the full truth in a public inquiry. A Bill to this effect, the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill 2017 was introduced in Parliament in March 2017, but it has yet to be passed as a law. While this would not work retrospectively to help find justice for those impacted by Hillsborough, it may help to find accountability in such a situation in the future. Perhaps this is the best we can ask for.
Natalya is a third year Law student at the University of Manchester. Her goal after university is to become a solicitor, where she hopes to continue helping to bring human rights issues to light. While at university, she is working with the Innocence Project to appeal miscarriages of justice and will be working with the Legal Advice Centre in the coming year.