By James Simons-
Six people including two former senior police officers have been charged with criminal offences in relation to the deaths of 96 people at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough football ground.
The charges include the alleged police cover up that accompanied the investigation into the Hillborough disaster. The police have a bad history of covering up their dirt whenever their actions come under serious investigations. This time, it hasn’t worked out well for the parties who are facing manslaughter charges and are likely to be sent down. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty goes without saying, but the CPS must know what they are doing to confidently say they have enough evidence to charge them. The accused officers will still have their day in court, which will receive massive publicity.
MANSLAUGHTER
South Yorkshire former police officer, Duckenfield, who was in command of policing, has been charged with manslaughter of 96 people.
The CPS alleges that Duckenfield’s failure to take personal responsibility on the day was “extraordinarily bad and contributed substantially to the deaths of each of those 96 people who so tragically and unnecessarily lost their lives”.
Also charged is Sir Norman Bettison, the former chief constable of Merseyside and West Yorkshire police, who was an inspector in the South Yorkshire force at the time of the disaster, has been charged with four counts of misconduct in a public office.
Bettison allegedly abused his position of office, amounting to misconduct in a public office. Hemming said the officer allegedly told lies about his involvement in the disaster. “Given his role as a senior police officer, we will ask the jury to find that this was misconduct of such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder,” she said.
Graham Mackrell, the Sheffield Wednesday chief executive, Graham Mackrell, who was also the officially designated safety officer for the Hillsborough stadium, has been charged with breaching the terms of the ground’s safety certificate and failing to take reasonable care under the Health and Safety at Work Act. The charges are a shocking blow to the police force, whose officers are expected to know their responsibilities, and deliver them to at least near perfection. Highly ranked officers failing in their duties questions how many others have quietly let the public down in other less serious cases, and escaped punishment.
Donald Denton, Another South Yorkshire police chief superintendent who operated in a senior role in that process, Donald Denton, has also been charged. There is still one more. Denton’s deputy, chief inspector Alan Foster, and the then South Yorkshire police solicitor, Peter Metcalf, have all been charged. The charges are the most serious to hit so many highly ranked former police officials, and has taken two decades to bring forward.
“Criminal proceedings have now commenced and the defendants have a right to a fair trial. It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”
The CPS also considered bringing charges against Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, the South Yorkshire metropolitan ambulance service and the Football Association (FA). Hemming said Sheffield Wednesday could not face charges as a legal entity as it “only now exists on paper”. She added there were “no directors or others listed who form the company and therefore no-one who can give instructions to answer any criminal charge or enter a plea”.
There was insufficient evidence to prosecute senior staff from the ambulance service, she said. There was also insufficient evidence to bring a case against the FA, which was considered for breaches of health and safety legislation and the Safety of Sports Grounds Act. Hemming said “there was not a realistic prospect of a conviction against them”.
Families of those who died gathered at Parr Hall, a venue in Warrington, near Liverpool, to hear the news directly from representatives of the CPS.
Family members who were given the news personally in a meeting with Hemming said there was a feeling of relief that charges had been brought. Leo Fallon, brother-in-law of Andrew Sefton, who was 23 when he was killed at Hillsborough, said it was gratifying to see some charges brought but said it had been too long to wait until 28 years after Andrew’s death
He said: “There is a sense of relief among families, and we have to wait and see what the outcome will be. But our feeling is it has taken far too long; if it had been dealt with properly at the time, it would have damaged people less, and cost the public less.”
Barry Devonside, whose son Christopher, then 18, also died in the lethal crush on the Leppings Lane terrace at Hillsborough, said: “Fortunately the families have behaved with the utmost dignity. In my mind we had a son – and I don’t want to make stupid comments – but he was a perfect son in every way. He had respect for himself, and for his mum and dad, and for the public.”
The charges are the latest significant landmark in a 28-year campaign for accountability fought since the disaster by the families of the 96 people who died, survivors of the crush and the wider Liverpool and football supporting communities.
Last April the jury, which heard new inquests into the deaths, determined following two years of evidence that the 96 people had been unlawfully killed, and that the conduct of Liverpool supporters who attended the match did not contribute to the dangerous situation.
In January, the two new criminal investigations into the disaster and South Yorkshire police conduct afterwards announced that they had sent files of evidence to the CPS on 23 individuals and organisations.
Fifteen of those 23 files related to the circumstances that led to the disaster itself on 15 April 1989, in which hundreds of people suffered injuries and trauma as well as the 96 people who were killed. The remaining eight files were sent by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, relating to their inquiry into the way the police compiled evidence and presented its case in public and to the subsequent legal procedures.
The new inquests were ordered after the first verdict in 1991 was quashed by the high court in December 2012, following a 21-year campaign by the families and a report in September 2012 by the Hillsborough Independent Panel.