[195], At a trial preparation hearing at Preston Crown Court on 10September 2018, Duckenfield pleaded not guilty to all 95 charges against him. followed in April 2017 on the eve of the 28th anniversary of the disaster after a column by Kelvin MacKenzie concerning Everton footballer Ross Barkley. [233] Halfway through the minute's silence, the A.C. Milan fans sang Liverpool's "You'll Never Walk Alone" as a sign of respect. [16], At the time of the disaster most English football stadiums had high steel fencing between the spectators and the playing field in response to pitch invasions. A seven-foot-high circular bronze memorial was unveiled in the Old Haymarket district of Liverpool in April 2013. The crowd numbered more than 60,000, including around 6,000 Liverpool fans, and all the match proceeds went to the Hillsborough appeal fund. Some supporters were delayed by roadworks while crossing the Pennines on the M62 motorway which resulted in minor traffic congestion. [15], Hillsborough Stadium had been constructed in 1899 to house Sheffield Wednesday. The decision angered the families, many of whom felt the inquests were unable to consider the response of the police and other emergency services after that time. [106] Purpose-built stadiums for Premier League and most Football League teams since the report are all-seater. [227], Other services took place at the same time, including at the Anglican Liverpool Cathedral and the Roman Catholic Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. [191] The ruling also noted that the original statements had neither been destroyed, nor had they been ordered to be destroyed. Troubador. September 2012 Hillsborough disaster report (7.25 megabytes), 1915 British football match-fixing scandal, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hillsborough_disaster&oldid=1141795975, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia articles in need of updating from January 2022, All Wikipedia articles in need of updating, Articles to be expanded from January 2022, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from December 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Christine Gifford, expert in the field of access to information. . [37] At 2:46pm, the BBC's football commentator John Motson had already noticed the uneven distribution of people in the Leppings Lane pens. [241] As well as The Sun's 19 April 1989 "The Truth" article (see below) other newspapers published similar allegations; the Daily Star headline on the same day reported "Dead fans robbed by drunk thugs"; the Daily Mail accused the Liverpool fans of being "drunk and violent and their actions were vile", and The Daily Express ran a story alleging that "Police saw 'sick spectacle of pilfering from the dying'." He added it would be like making jokes about the 2002 Bali bombings, in which eight fewer Australians were killed. [80] Andrew Devine, who was 22 at the time of the disaster, died in 2021 at the age of 55. [69] A total of 766 people were reported to have suffered injuries, among whom 300 were hospitalised. [206] An agreement was reached in the case in April 2021, but reporting restrictions were put in place due to the pending trial of Denton, Foster and Metcalf. Duckenfield was not required to appear as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) needed to apply to the High Court to lift a court order before he could be prosecuted on the manslaughter charges. Let's be honest about thispeople were against us. [108] In England and Wales all-seating is a requirement of the Premier League[109] and of the Football League for clubs who have been present in the Championship for more than three seasons. Although the editor Boris Johnson did not write this piece,[293] journalist Simon Heffer said he had written the first draft of the article at Johnson's request. This followed a legal challenge in the High Court by his family to have his treatment withdrawn, a landmark challenge which succeeded in November 1992. [77] Jon-Paul Gilhooley, aged 10, was the youngest person to die. Sheffield Wednesday was also criticised for the inadequate number of turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end and the poor quality of the crush barriers on the terraces, "respects in which failure by the Club contributed to this disaster". . [43], The match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest began as scheduled at 3:00pm. The anniversary was also marked by a minute's silence at the weekend's league games and FA Cup semi-finals. There is a permanent memorial to the 96 fans who died, in the form of a bench in view of the battlefield at a nearby lodge. "[303], Popplewell was criticised for the comments, including a rebuke from a survivor of the Bradford fire. There was insufficient evidence against the police officer to charge him with the offence. He faced no charge in respect of the death of Tony Bland, who died four years after the disaster. This is our response", "Hillsborough inquest verdict: the front pages", "As disgusting as it is unsurprising. Two thousand traveling Liverpool away fans entered an already packed terrace via a . [86] The Hillsborough Independent Panel considered the available evidence and stated that "the initial pathologist's opinion appeared definitive, but further authoritative opinions raised significant doubts about the accuracy of that initial opinion. Liverpool won the match by four goals to nil.[237]. [146] Sir John Goldring was appointed as Assistant Coroner for South Yorkshire (East) and West Yorkshire (West) to conduct those inquests. [323][324], As the documentary included previously unreleased security camera footage from the stadium on the day of the disaster, it could not be shown in the UK upon initial release due to the 2012 High Court inquest still being in progress. A member of the Hillsborough Families Support Group responded "too little, too late". Their claims were dismissed and the Alcock decision was upheld. In all but one case, the jury recorded the time of death as later than the 3:15pm cut-off point adopted by the coroner at the original inquests. "[112] Therefore, evidence such as witness statements which had been altered were classed as inadmissible. It obviously wasn't a silly mistake; nor was it a simple oversight. [99] However, on the day of the disaster, "by 2:52pm when gate C was opened, pens 3 and 4 were over-full [] to allow any more into those pens was likely to cause injuries; to allow in a large stream was courting disaster". The only one called was the Sheffield Wednesday club doctor. [253] In fact many Liverpool fans helped security personnel stretcher away victims and gave first aid to the injured. Nor do I consider that there is any justification for setting up any further inquiry into the performance of the emergency and hospital services. [5][6], The first coroner's inquests into the Hillsborough disaster, completed in 1991, concluded with verdicts of accidental death in respect of all the deceased. Lord Justice Taylor, Final Report (Cm 962), Hillsborough: The Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, Liverpool Football Club Hillsborough Memorial. A police officer ordinarily made a visual assessment before guiding fans to other pens. That it might so occur was foreseeable". [43], The crowd in the Leppings Lane Stand spilt onto the pitch, where the many injured and traumatised fans who had climbed to safety congregated. No, his apology doesn't mean a thing to me. Former Sheffield Wednesday F.C. "[114] However, the determination by Stuart-Smith was heavily criticised by the Justice Minister, Lord Falconer, who stated "I am absolutely sure that Sir Murray Stuart-Smith came completely to the wrong conclusion". calling for his resignation, but he apologised on discovering hooliganism was not the cause. In July 1992, the government announced a relaxation of the regulation for the lower two English leagues (known now as League One and League Two). [179], On 12 July 2013, it was reported that the IPCC had found that in addition to the now 164 police statements known to have been altered, a further 55 police officers had changed their statements. The inquests hearings started on Monday 31 March 2014 at Warrington. The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal human crush during a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989. Finally, seven turnstiles (lettered A to G) provided access to 10,100 standing places in the lower tier of the West Stand. [197], On 13 March 2019, it was reported that Duckenfield would not be called to give evidence in his defence. Rather than establishing crowd safety as their top priority, the clubs, local authorities and police viewed their roles and responsibilities through the 'lens of hooliganism'. Scrutiny of Evidence Relating to the Hillsborough Football Stadium Disaster (Command Paper); Home Office; Sports Stadia After Hillsborough: Seminar Papers; This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 21:14. The system of ferrying injured from any location within the stadium to the CRP required a formal declaration to be made by those in charge for it to take effect. the total attitude was, youve identified number 33 so go! [17] From 1974, when these security standards were put in place, crushes occurred in several English stadiums. Families believed that Popper was 'too close' to the police. [7] Families disputed the findings,[4] and fought to have the case re-opened. [236], On 30 April 1989, a friendly match organised by Celtic F.C. This was unlikely at the beginning of a match. "[281], Professor Phil Scraton described Pearce's comments as amongst the "most bigoted and factually inaccurate" published in the wake of the disaster. I do not consider that there is any material which should be put before the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Police Complaints Authority which might cause them to reconsider the decisions they have already taken. Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool's manager at the time of the disaster, read a passage from the Bible, "Lamentations of Jeremiah". About sharing . [1] This resulted in overcrowding of those pens and the crush. "[272] Trevor Kavanagh, the political editor at the time of the Hillsborough disaster, said that he was "not sorry at all" about the reporting and supported his former boss Kelvin MacKenzie, stating that "we were clearly misled about the events and the authorities, including the police, actively concealed the truth". [66][67], By the disaster's 10th anniversary in 1999, at least three people who survived were known to have taken their own lives. In its announcement, the IPCC praised the tenacity of the Hillsborough families' campaign for truth and justice. They organised a sensible compensation scheme and moved on. The turnstiles didn't seem to be letting people through very quickly, and the crowd was really building up. The extreme reaction to Mr Bigley's murder is fed by the fact that he was a Liverpudlian. Deborah Glass, deputy chair of the IPCC said, "We know the people who have contacted us are the tip of the iceberg." [18], A report by Eastwood & Partners for a safety certificate for the stadium in 1978 concluded that although it failed to meet the recommendations of the Green Guide, a guide to safety at sports grounds, the consequences were minor. It was a 'classic smear'. The Hillsborough memorial at Anfield (featuring the names of the 96 who lost their lives, and an eternal flame) was located next to the Shankly Gates before it was moved to the front of the redeveloped main stand in 2016. [261] The Hillsborough Justice Campaign organised a less successful national boycott that had some impact on the paper's sales nationally. [4] In 2009 a Hillsborough Independent Panel was formed to review the evidence. By this time, a small gate in the fence had been forced open and some fans escaped via this route, as others continued to climb over the fencing. This is an edited extract from 'The Hillsborough Disaster: In Their Own Words . Mackenzie reportedly spent two hours deciding on which headline to run; his original instinct being for "You Scum" before eventually deciding on "The Truth". A case, Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [1992] 1 A.C. 310, was eventually appealed to the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords and was an important milestone in the law of claims of secondary victims for negligently inflicted psychiatric injury. [4] Following the Taylor Report, the Director of Public Prosecutions ruled there was no evidence to justify prosecution of any individuals or institutions. The findings concluded that 164 witness statements had been altered. This prompted 380 complaints and the BBC apologised, saying that the character was simply reminding another character, former football hooligan Jase Dyer, that the actions of hooligans led to the fencing-in of football fans. The remaining 14 victims lived in other parts of England. [20], Risks associated with confining fans in pens were highlighted by the Committee of Inquiry into Crowd Safety at Sports Grounds (the Popplewell inquiry) after the Bradford City stadium fire in May 1985. After the two minutes' silence, bells on civic buildings rang out throughout Merseyside. [250][251] The Daily Express also carried Patnick's version, under the headline "Police Accuse Drunken Fans" which gave Patnick's views, saying he had told Margaret Thatcher, while escorting her on a tour of the ground after the disaster, of the "mayhem caused by drunks" and that policemen told him they were "hampered, harassed, punched and kicked". That's why I am so grateful to my city and so proud of my city. Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation, 'The patronising disposition of unaccountable power' report. But it didn't cause the disaster any more than the sunny day that encouraged people to linger outside the stadium as kick off approached. This game was Liverpool's first appearance on the football field since the disaster two weeks earlier. Fans outside could hear cheering as the teams came on the pitch ten minutes before the match started, and as the match kicked off, but could not gain entrance. Announcing the report to the House of Commons, Home Secretary Jack Straw backed Stuart-Smith's findings and said that "I do not believe that a further inquiry could or would uncover significant new evidence or provide any relief for the distress of those who have been bereaved. The Taylor Inquiry sat for a total of 31 days (between 15May and 29June 1989)[92] and published two reports: an interim report (1August 1989) which laid out the events of the day and immediate conclusions; and a final report (19January 1990) which outlined general recommendations on football ground safety. All five were bailed to appear at the Crown Court in September. [90], Ashton and Phillips were not the only doctors present at the disaster not to be called to give evidence to the Popper inquests. Club Secretary Graham Mackrell faced a charge of breaching the Safety at Sports Ground Act 1975. His remarks led to Liverpool F.C. He dismissed the claim by senior police officers that they had no reason to anticipate problems, since congestion had occurred at both the 1987 and 1988 semi-finals. According to the BBC report: "The names of the victims were read from the memorial book and floral tributes were laid at a plaque bearing their names. Gerrard has said the disaster inspired him to lead the team he supported as a boy and become a top professional football player. Devine died in 2021, as a consequence of the injuries sustained at Hillsborough, with his death being ruled by the coroner to have been an unlawful killing, raising the total death toll of the disaster to 97.[73][74][75]. It was April 26, 2016. Between 2:30pm and 2:40pm, there was a build-up of supporters outside the turnstiles facing Leppings Lane, eager to enter the stadium before the game began. [316], In March 2018, British clothing retailer Topman marketed a T-shirt which was interpreted by members of the public, including relatives of Hillsborough victims, as mocking the disaster.