Hillsborough families ‘very, very angry’ that no officers will face punishment despite report’s findings – live | Hillsborough disaster

Other bereaved family members gathered have been taking questions from reporters at the press conference.

They’ve been asked how upset or frustrated they might feel, learning that 12 police officers would have a case to answer for gross misconduct but there will be no action taken due to the years that have passed.

Margaret Aspinall, the mother of James, 18, who was killed said: “It really makes you very, very angry when you think of all those 97 who died, unlawfully killed, and yet no one’s been held to account. To me that’s a disgrace.”

She adds that’s why it’s important to have the Hillsborough Law – the new legal obligation imposed on public officials and police officers to report with transparency and candour in their duties.

She believe’s today’s report will change things for other people, but says she knows it won’t change things for her and other Hillsborough families.

Hennessey goes on to address how through decades of campaigning, and even throughout the second inquests from 2014-2016, more evidence emerged of a police “cover-up”.

The IOPC report’s today finds that there were even more tampered statements from police.

“We were also shocked to learn that the IOPC discovered more than 130 South Yorkshire police officer statements that had been amended,” bringing the total to over 300, says Hennessey.

“From missing documents and video tapes to highly respected, high ranking police officers who ‘could not recall’, we will never truly know the full extent of South Yorkshire’s deception.

“But there is no hiding, there is no destroying and there is no way to cover-up that they failed their duties and then sought to blame the victims.”

The IOPC in its report found Duckenfield would have faced 10 gross misconduct cases, including for his notorious lie told as the disaster was developing, that Liverpool supporters had forced open an exit gate to gain entry to the stadium.

In fact Duckenfield had ordered the wide gate to be opened, to relieve serious congestion outside the ground.

No police officer has been convicted of any criminal offences in relation to the Hillsborough failings, and none faced disciplinary proceedings at the time they were serving.

Early on in her statement, Hennessey also addressed the officer in charge that day at Hillsborough, David Duckenfeld, who was found at the second inquest to be liable for gross negligence manslaughter.

Duckenfield was the officer who told the lie that Liverpool fans had opened a gate to get into the stadium that day, thus causing the crush. South Yorkshire police for years blamed Liverpool supporters for the disaster even when it was proven at the first inquest that the forces’s poor planning and crowd control was the chief reason.

Duckenfield faced criminal proceedings after the 2014-2016 second inquest’s findings but was acquitted in 2019.

Hennessey says the IOPC’s report confirms what she and other relatives and survivors knew all these years: that “David Duckenfield is a liar”.

His first thought as he stood over Liverpool fans, watching them fight for their lives, was to blame them and protect himself. Despite multiple opportunities over the course of 25 years… he chose to remain silent and watch as we fought for justice, truth and accountability.”

She says none of the families have or will accept his apology.

Charlotte Hennessy, whose father James was among the 97 unlawfully killed, says the watchdog’s report “confirms what families and survivors knew all along”.

She says the families welcome the IOPC’s conclusions in relation to 12 police officers that:“their actions or a lack thereof amounts to a case to answer for gross misconduct.”

While some conclusions are disappointing we respect that the process was investigated and accept the element of closure.

“Many remind us that Hillsborough was 36 years ago, but nobody is more acutely aware of that than those who lost loved ones and those who survived.

For all of these years we have longed for full disclosure.”

The press conference has begun with a statement from lawyers representing the families, summarising the watchdog’s findings that more than 100 cases of gross misconduct allegations were found against former police officers.

But there is no accountability, they say.

“Not a single officer will face a disciplinary action,” says the lead lawyer Nicola Brook. “No one will be held to account.”

She says the findings of the IOPC report is vindication for survivors who have “fought for decades to expose the truth’, but it also exposes “a system that allows officers to simply walk away, retiring without consequence”.

For the first time, authorities also examined the actions of West Midlands Police (WMP), the force tasked with investigating the disaster.

“We found this investigation to be wholly unsatisfactory and too narrow,” the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found.

“We also found evidence to indicate that the actions of two senior WMP officers were biased in favour of South Yorkshire Police.”

There has disappointment among some survivors that the IOPC has not criticised the West Midlands police investigation more extensively.

The watchdog did uphold some complaints, but said it had not found West Midlands officers were generally intimidating towards the survivors they interviewed, asked them excessively about supporters drinking, or were biased towards South Yorkshire police.

Just pulling out a key line from the IOPC report:

We found South Yorkshire Police (SYP) fundamentally failed in its planning for the match, in its response as the disaster unfolded and in how it dealt with traumatised supporters and families searching for their loved ones.”

‘Absolutely ridiculous that so few police face a case over lies and cover-up we’ve had to fight for 36 years’

David Conn

Margaret Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son James was one of the 97 people unlawfully killed, has criticised the lack of accountability.

I cannot accept or understand how 97 people can be unlawfully killed, the police can lie, and nobody is held accountable,” she says.

“I recognise that the IOPC and Operation Resolve have worked hard and some of these findings are strong. But it’s absolutely ridiculous that so few people have been accused of gross misconduct for the lies and cover-up we’ve had to fight for 36 years.”

She was the last chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, and successfully campaigned with other families for the “Hillsborough law”, introduced into parliament by Keir Starmer’s government in September. It is aimed at deterring official cover-ups by introducing a duty of “candour, transparency and frankness” for police officers and public officials.

This morning, the IOPC deputy director general Kathie Cashell admitted that for some families the report has still left some questions unanswered.

She says it’s “deeply unsatisfactory that over 36 years later we are still looking for those answers.”

Rob Beckley, who previously headed the investigation into Hillsborough, said the report omitted the use of the phrase “cover up” as there was not a strong- enough legal basis for it.

But during the process of interviewing members of the police, he said “there was evasiveness, and there was defensiveness,” with senior figures in particular exhibiting what he described as a “veneer of cooperation”.

The Home Secretary has issued a response to the police watchdog’s findings:

The unlawful killing of the 97 at Hillsborough 36 years ago is a stain on our nation’s history and today serves as a stark reminder of one of the most significant failings in policing the country has ever seen.”

Shabana Mahmood goes on to pay tribute to the families and survivors of Hillsborough.

She says they have faced “years of mistreatment and delay”, but thanks to their campaigning the government is introducing the Hillsborough Law which will place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities.

Mahmood notes there are now also laws in place which mean that police officers can no longer evade misconduct proceedings by retiring or resigning, “so these failings can never be repeated”.

As we reported earlier, the 12 officers identified today for gross misconduct cases will not face any sort of disciplinary proceeding because when the watchdog’s investigation began, they had already retired or had died, and under laws at the time, this precluded any disciplinary action.

The police watchdog in their report has found 110 cases against former officers, including for “falsehood and prevarication”, “discreditable conduct”, “abuse of authority” and “neglect of duty”.

The 366-page report marks the culmination of 14 years’ work by the IOPC, which describes it as “the largest independent investigation into alleged police misconduct and criminality ever carried out in England and Wales”.

Their investigation began in 2012 after the Hillsborough Independent Panel made landmark findings on police culpability, which led to the quashing of the verdict of accidental death from the first inquest in 1991.

The report has been delivered to bereaved families in the past days. My colleague Raphael Boyd is in Liverpool to hear from some of them at a press conference shortly.

But some have already told the Guardian that while they welcome the gross misconduct allegations, they are outraged the watchdog did not find more cases to answer against South Yorkshire police officers for falsely blaming Liverpool supporters.

The officer in command on the day at the stadium told a lie at the time that Liverpool fans had forced open a gate to get into the stadium and that had contributed to the crush.

Families and survivors have long described that lie, and other actions as part of a police cover-up campaign. They have spent decades fighting for the truth as to what really happened and for justice for victims and survivors.

The watchdog has found that 12 officers, all men, would have faced disciplinary cases of gross misconduct.

• Ten were in the South Yorkshire force, including senior officers responsible for safety at Hillsborough.

• South Yorkshire’s Chief Constable Peter Wright, in charge at the time of the disaster, would have faced six gross misconduct allegations, among them seeking to minimise police responsibility and deflecting blame on to the victims, Liverpool football club supporters.

• Two other men were senior officers in West Midlands police, which had been appointed to investigate the South Yorkshire force after the disaster.

• Mervyn Jones and Michael Foster would have faced allegations that they “failed to investigate effectively” and were “biased against supporters in favour of South Yorkshire police”.

In a press release, the IOPC deputy director general Kathie Cashell thanked those who supported the police watchdog’s investigation through sharing “very personal accounts”. She paid tribute to the “courage they have shown in revisiting those events”.

The 97 people who were unlawfully killed, their families, survivors of the disaster and all those so deeply affected, have been repeatedly let down—before, during and after the horrific events of that day.

First by the deep complacency of South Yorkshire Police in its preparation for the match, followed by its fundamental failure to grip the disaster as it unfolded, and then through the force’s concerted efforts to deflect the blame onto the Liverpool supporters, which caused enormous distress to bereaved families and survivors for nearly four decades.

They were let down again by the inexplicably narrow investigation into the disaster conducted by West Midlands Police, which was a missed opportunity to bring these failings to light much sooner.

What they have had to endure over more than 36 years is a source of national shame.”

The full findings of the 366-page report can be found here.

The Guardian’s report of today’s landmark findings is below:

The police watchdog has identified 12 police officers who “have a case to answer” for gross misconduct.

But none will face disciplinary proceedings because they have all retired, or have died.

Peter Wright, the chief constable in charge of South Yorkshire police at the time of the disaster, died in 2011.

No police officer has been convicted of any criminal offences in relation to the Hillsborough failings, and none faced disciplinary proceedings at the time they were serving.

After 36 years of fighting for justice, the families and friends of 97 people killed in the Hillsborough disaster have received the findings of a 14-year investigation by the police watchdog into police conduct over the tragedy.

Twelve police officers, most of them senior, should have faced disciplinary cases of gross misconduct for failings related to the mass crush, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has ruled.

The watchdog found police officers sought to minimise the force’s responsibility and culpability by deflecting blame on to victims, Liverpool football club supporters.

In the inquiries that followed the crush, investigating police were also biased in trying to protect their colleagues, changing evidence and presenting conclusions which led to families describing the process as a police “cover-up”.

The IOPC said the 97 people killed, their families, survivors and all those deeply affected were: “repeatedly let down—before, during and after the horrific events of that day.”

“What they have had to endure over more than 36 years is a source of national shame.”

We’ll have rolling coverage of this major report’s findings, and the reaction from families.