Last week, Britain’s Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) after a fourteen year investigation into the policing of the Hillsborough disaster found that twelve police officers, most of them senior, would have faced disciplinary proceedings for gross misconduct if they were still serving for the catalogue of failings set out in the IOPC’s final report.[1]
Almost in symmetry in terms of time with the experience of the relatives of the Bloody Sunday campaign who had to wait for 38 years between the occurrence of the atrocity in 1972 and the vindication of the total innocence of those 14 murdered by the Parachute Regiment and the publication of the Savile Report in 2010, the IOPC report represents the definitive account of the innocence of the Hillsborough 97 and the malfeasance of the state actors involved; 36 years after the event. In the cases of both campaigns death, infirmity, retirement, and the near impossibility of securing the sufficient evidence for successful prosecution due to the lengthy time lapses has robbed them of their proper days in court. Hence, justice delayed and denied. However, despite the lack of legal restitution for the relatives of both most acts of monstrous and long running injustices; both stand triumphant at the bars of history and morality. Hence the delivery of eternal justice that is referenced in the title of article.
The stories of both campaigns have been well chronicled, but the parallels are well worth recounting. In the immediate aftermath of the traumatic event, the forces of the state try to cover their tracks by the spreading of lies about the victims. In the case of Hillsborough, South Yorkshire police officers in collaboration with a local Tory MP fed the notorious calumnies that Liverpool supporters stole possessions from the dead and in states of inebriation urinated at the scene in support of the false narrative that supporters were drunk, came in large numbers without tickets and had arrived late. Post Bloody Sunday, the British Information Bureau planted stories in the press that four of the dead were in possession of nail bombs and at least one of the deceased belonged to the junior IRA.
Just as the Bloody Sunday relatives had to fight the whitewash of the Widgery Report in April 1972 which found that the actions of the soldiers on that day were justified on the grounds that they were responding to possible threats from armed individuals, so the Hillsborough campaigners had to fight to overcome the first inquest into the loss of life which returned an open verdict which the High Court in 1993 refused the families’ application to quash. The Bloody Sunday relatives did early on have the moral force of the local coroner who at the inquest that the soldiers involved that day “had committed wanton murder.”
Over the subsequent decades, investigative journalism and powerful documentary dramas steadily uncovered the truth that the bereaved had always known and exposed it to the wider public. The drama doc made by acclaimed author and film maker Jimmy McGovern established that some of the deceased were actually alive after the coroner’s 3.15 time of death pronouncement. Changes in political environments along with the patient but exhausting efforts of the campaigners led to the Savile Inquiry being set up former PM Tony Blair shortly after his election and to the setting up of the Hillsborough Independent Inquiry on the instigation of then Labour Minister and current Greater Manchester Mayor' Andy Burnham' with the words “Justice for the 96” ringing in his ears after addressing a 20th anniversary commemoration at Anfield in April 2009.
The IOPC listed six gross misconduct allegations against the late Peter Wright, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire at the time of the disaster, for seeking to minimise the force’s responsibility onto the victims, who were Liverpool football club supporters. The report chronicles how no disciplinary proceedings came to be taken against any of the officers on duty that day, including the match commander, David Duckenfield, for the notorious lie that he spun as the disaster developed; informing football authorities that Liverpool supporters had forced upon an exit gate[2] when in fact it was his decision to open an entry gate to already overcrowded Leppings Lane that directly contributed to the fatal crushing.
The South Yorkshire police told the then Police Complaints Authority (PCA) that the force “did not feel disciplinary action was appropriate'' in respect of any of the complaints. The PCA mostly accepted that but recommended that disciplinary proceedings be commenced against Duckenfield and the deputy match commander, Supt Bernard Murray, for neglect of duty, But the IPOC report records starkly: “South Yorkshire police did not so.” Duckenfield then took early retirement on medical grounds. The PCA decided that it would be “unjust and inappropriate” to pursue the charge against Murray, a course of action that meant no officer ever faced disciplinary proceedings.[3]
Two senior West Midlands investigating officers, assistant chief constable Mervyn Jones and DCS Michael Foster, were named for gross misconduct cases, for allegations that they had “failed to investigate South Yorkshire police effectively'' and had been “biased against supporters in favour of South Yorkshire police”; this was in relation to the aggressive questioning of traumatised teenagers in order to determine the incidence of drunkenness amongst supporters although survivors have been exasperated against the limitations of these parts of the IOPC findings.[4]
To return to the timeline of the Hillsborough saga outlined earlier, it is impossible to overstate the importance of the role of the Hillsborough Independent Panel in breaking the judicial and investigative logjam. The Panel was a group of agreed experts appointed by the government, after the initiative of the afore mentioned then Labour minister Andy Burnham and his ministerial colleague Maria Eagle, who called for all documents relating to the disaster to be disclosed. The panel’s report in September 2012, principally researched and written by Prof Phil Scratton – surely one of the great truthtellers of our time – ignited the case for justice, documented forensically the depth of Wright’s efforts to palm responsibility onto the Liverpool supporters and brought to light medical evidence that contradicted the findings of the 1991 inquest. [5]
Within three months the High Court had quashed the 1991 findings and, in the wake of the HIP report Prime Minister David Cameron was on the floor of the House of Commons apologising on behalf of the nation to the bereaved of Hillsborough just as two years earlier he had issued an apology to the bereaved of Bloody Sunday in the wake of the publication of the Savile Report which had totally exonerated the victims of that day’s massacre of any culpability and opened up the possibility of criminal charges against the soldiers and officers-in-command of the First Parachute Regiment who so dishonoured their reputation that day.
But the wheels of justice trundled oh so slowly and steadily. After the longest jury case in history, the second inquest held in Warrington supported by the IOPC’s far reaching investigation Operation Resolve and held in Warrington between 2014 and 2016, the jury on 26 April 2016 returned their verdict that the 97 were unlawfully killed due to gross negligence by David Duckenfield. The jury further determined that no behaviour of Liverpool supporters contributed to the disaster.[6]
So total vindication of the case that the Hillsborough Families had pursued for the best part of three decades. But would they get their day in the criminal courts? Who would stand in the dock to account for what can best be described as corporate manslaughter by South Yorkshire Police at Hillsborough on 15th April 1989? Sadly not. The IOPC has concluded its 14-year investigation, with the 12 men named for gross misconduct case, a total of 110 complaints upheld or cases to answer against former police officers – none of which will ever be heard.
Post-Savile criminal investigations did result in the arraignment of Soldier F (identified in the tribunal proceedings as the killer of five of the Bloody Sunday dead) for the murders of two and the wounding of five civilians fifty year after the events but his trial collapsed in October 2025 due to the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence against him; this despite the scathing condemnation of the trial judge of the defendant’s conduct on that day. But the figure who should have stood in any dock was Colonel Derek Wilord, commander of the First Parachute Regiment that day and who, the Savile Inquiry found, had expressly disobeyed orders from superior officers not to enter the Bogside thereby setting in train the events of that terrible and most consequential day.
Yes, in the words of Steve Kelly, whose brother Mike, 38, died at Hillsborough:
Almost in symmetry in terms of time with the experience of the relatives of the Bloody Sunday campaign who had to wait for 38 years between the occurrence of the atrocity in 1972 and the vindication of the total innocence of those 14 murdered by the Parachute Regiment and the publication of the Savile Report in 2010, the IOPC report represents the definitive account of the innocence of the Hillsborough 97 and the malfeasance of the state actors involved; 36 years after the event. In the cases of both campaigns death, infirmity, retirement, and the near impossibility of securing the sufficient evidence for successful prosecution due to the lengthy time lapses has robbed them of their proper days in court. Hence, justice delayed and denied. However, despite the lack of legal restitution for the relatives of both most acts of monstrous and long running injustices; both stand triumphant at the bars of history and morality. Hence the delivery of eternal justice that is referenced in the title of article.
The stories of both campaigns have been well chronicled, but the parallels are well worth recounting. In the immediate aftermath of the traumatic event, the forces of the state try to cover their tracks by the spreading of lies about the victims. In the case of Hillsborough, South Yorkshire police officers in collaboration with a local Tory MP fed the notorious calumnies that Liverpool supporters stole possessions from the dead and in states of inebriation urinated at the scene in support of the false narrative that supporters were drunk, came in large numbers without tickets and had arrived late. Post Bloody Sunday, the British Information Bureau planted stories in the press that four of the dead were in possession of nail bombs and at least one of the deceased belonged to the junior IRA.
Just as the Bloody Sunday relatives had to fight the whitewash of the Widgery Report in April 1972 which found that the actions of the soldiers on that day were justified on the grounds that they were responding to possible threats from armed individuals, so the Hillsborough campaigners had to fight to overcome the first inquest into the loss of life which returned an open verdict which the High Court in 1993 refused the families’ application to quash. The Bloody Sunday relatives did early on have the moral force of the local coroner who at the inquest that the soldiers involved that day “had committed wanton murder.”
Over the subsequent decades, investigative journalism and powerful documentary dramas steadily uncovered the truth that the bereaved had always known and exposed it to the wider public. The drama doc made by acclaimed author and film maker Jimmy McGovern established that some of the deceased were actually alive after the coroner’s 3.15 time of death pronouncement. Changes in political environments along with the patient but exhausting efforts of the campaigners led to the Savile Inquiry being set up former PM Tony Blair shortly after his election and to the setting up of the Hillsborough Independent Inquiry on the instigation of then Labour Minister and current Greater Manchester Mayor' Andy Burnham' with the words “Justice for the 96” ringing in his ears after addressing a 20th anniversary commemoration at Anfield in April 2009.
The IOPC listed six gross misconduct allegations against the late Peter Wright, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire at the time of the disaster, for seeking to minimise the force’s responsibility onto the victims, who were Liverpool football club supporters. The report chronicles how no disciplinary proceedings came to be taken against any of the officers on duty that day, including the match commander, David Duckenfield, for the notorious lie that he spun as the disaster developed; informing football authorities that Liverpool supporters had forced upon an exit gate[2] when in fact it was his decision to open an entry gate to already overcrowded Leppings Lane that directly contributed to the fatal crushing.
The South Yorkshire police told the then Police Complaints Authority (PCA) that the force “did not feel disciplinary action was appropriate'' in respect of any of the complaints. The PCA mostly accepted that but recommended that disciplinary proceedings be commenced against Duckenfield and the deputy match commander, Supt Bernard Murray, for neglect of duty, But the IPOC report records starkly: “South Yorkshire police did not so.” Duckenfield then took early retirement on medical grounds. The PCA decided that it would be “unjust and inappropriate” to pursue the charge against Murray, a course of action that meant no officer ever faced disciplinary proceedings.[3]
Two senior West Midlands investigating officers, assistant chief constable Mervyn Jones and DCS Michael Foster, were named for gross misconduct cases, for allegations that they had “failed to investigate South Yorkshire police effectively'' and had been “biased against supporters in favour of South Yorkshire police”; this was in relation to the aggressive questioning of traumatised teenagers in order to determine the incidence of drunkenness amongst supporters although survivors have been exasperated against the limitations of these parts of the IOPC findings.[4]
To return to the timeline of the Hillsborough saga outlined earlier, it is impossible to overstate the importance of the role of the Hillsborough Independent Panel in breaking the judicial and investigative logjam. The Panel was a group of agreed experts appointed by the government, after the initiative of the afore mentioned then Labour minister Andy Burnham and his ministerial colleague Maria Eagle, who called for all documents relating to the disaster to be disclosed. The panel’s report in September 2012, principally researched and written by Prof Phil Scratton – surely one of the great truthtellers of our time – ignited the case for justice, documented forensically the depth of Wright’s efforts to palm responsibility onto the Liverpool supporters and brought to light medical evidence that contradicted the findings of the 1991 inquest. [5]
Within three months the High Court had quashed the 1991 findings and, in the wake of the HIP report Prime Minister David Cameron was on the floor of the House of Commons apologising on behalf of the nation to the bereaved of Hillsborough just as two years earlier he had issued an apology to the bereaved of Bloody Sunday in the wake of the publication of the Savile Report which had totally exonerated the victims of that day’s massacre of any culpability and opened up the possibility of criminal charges against the soldiers and officers-in-command of the First Parachute Regiment who so dishonoured their reputation that day.
But the wheels of justice trundled oh so slowly and steadily. After the longest jury case in history, the second inquest held in Warrington supported by the IOPC’s far reaching investigation Operation Resolve and held in Warrington between 2014 and 2016, the jury on 26 April 2016 returned their verdict that the 97 were unlawfully killed due to gross negligence by David Duckenfield. The jury further determined that no behaviour of Liverpool supporters contributed to the disaster.[6]
So total vindication of the case that the Hillsborough Families had pursued for the best part of three decades. But would they get their day in the criminal courts? Who would stand in the dock to account for what can best be described as corporate manslaughter by South Yorkshire Police at Hillsborough on 15th April 1989? Sadly not. The IOPC has concluded its 14-year investigation, with the 12 men named for gross misconduct case, a total of 110 complaints upheld or cases to answer against former police officers – none of which will ever be heard.
Post-Savile criminal investigations did result in the arraignment of Soldier F (identified in the tribunal proceedings as the killer of five of the Bloody Sunday dead) for the murders of two and the wounding of five civilians fifty year after the events but his trial collapsed in October 2025 due to the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence against him; this despite the scathing condemnation of the trial judge of the defendant’s conduct on that day. But the figure who should have stood in any dock was Colonel Derek Wilord, commander of the First Parachute Regiment that day and who, the Savile Inquiry found, had expressly disobeyed orders from superior officers not to enter the Bogside thereby setting in train the events of that terrible and most consequential day.
Yes, in the words of Steve Kelly, whose brother Mike, 38, died at Hillsborough:
No one should be beaten by the passage of time. We should have truth, justice, and accountability, at least within a person’s lifetime.[7]
Stripping of any honours bestowed on any of the guilty men identified by the IOPC and/or pensions would appear to be the only available tools of justice however remote the prospects of such outcomes.
The legacy of the Hillsborough families fight for truth and accountability is the Hillsborough Law introduced by the Labour government in September which establishes a duty of candour for police and public officials. The years and decades have passed by with no reckoning for those in state and corporate authority responsible for the egregious injustices uncovered in the Post Office Horizon IT and Infected Blood scandals to name just two of the British state’s guilty secrets. Is it too much to expect public accountability and a moment of reckoning for the malfeasances being uncovered by the Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry? But the true victor of the Hillsborough and the Bloody Sunday campaigns is the truth itself.
The legacy of the Hillsborough families fight for truth and accountability is the Hillsborough Law introduced by the Labour government in September which establishes a duty of candour for police and public officials. The years and decades have passed by with no reckoning for those in state and corporate authority responsible for the egregious injustices uncovered in the Post Office Horizon IT and Infected Blood scandals to name just two of the British state’s guilty secrets. Is it too much to expect public accountability and a moment of reckoning for the malfeasances being uncovered by the Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry? But the true victor of the Hillsborough and the Bloody Sunday campaigns is the truth itself.
Duckenfield - if only he had thrown the hands up at the start people would have been more understanding. But blaming it on the fans.
ReplyDeleteGood comparisons with Bloody Sunday, Barry.