Hillsborough inquest verdict: 96 unlawful killings

[Captain Seafort]

Beeb

Ninety-six football fans who died as a result of a crush in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster were unlawfully killed, the inquests have concluded.

The jury found match commander Ch Supt David Duckenfield was "responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence" due to a breach of his duty of care.

Police errors also added to a dangerous situation at the FA Cup semi-final.

The prime minister said the inquests had provided "official confirmation" fans were "utterly blameless".

After a 27-year campaign by victims' families, the behaviour of Liverpool fans was exonerated.

The jury found they did not contribute to the danger unfolding at the turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday's ground on 15 April 1989.

How the disaster unfolded

What the police chief knew

Five key mistakes

Families and players react to conclusions

Nine jurors reached unanimous decisions on all but one of the 14 questions at the inquests into Britain's worst sporting disaster.

The coroner Sir John Goldring said he would accept a majority decision about whether the fans were unlawfully killed - seven jurors agreed they were.

When the conclusion of the unlawful killing was revealed, families were seen hugging each other in the public gallery and some punched the air.

When considering how each of the 96 victims died the jury concluded many died well after 15:15 on the day of the match.

The coroner at the original inquest in 1991, Dr Stefan Popper, said he would not hear any evidence relating to deaths beyond that time because he believed all the victims had died, or suffered fatal injuries, by then.

The deaths were ruled accidental and those verdicts were quashed following the 2012 Hillsborough Independent Panel report, and new hearings were ordered.

The new inquests found the direct medical cause of death was compression asphyxia in all but three of the victims.

The earliest time of death was estimated from 14:57 and the last up to 17:00.

Tony Bland, the 96th victim, died in 1993 after being left brain damaged, due to or as a consequence of compression asphyxia.

The jury also concluded:

• Police errors caused a dangerous situation at the turnstiles
  Failures by commanding officers caused a crush on the terraces
  There were mistakes in the police control box over the order to open the Leppings Lane end exit gates
  Defects at the stadium, including calculations over crowd capacity, contributed to the disaster
  There was an error in the safety certification of the Hillsborough stadium
  South Yorkshire Police (SYP) and South Yorkshire Ambulance Service (SYAS) delayed declaring a major incident
  The emergency response was therefore delayed
  Sheffield Wednesday failed to approve the plans for dedicated turnstiles for each pen
  There was inadequate signage at the club and misleading information on match tickets
  Club officials should have requested a delay in kick off as they were aware of a huge number of fans outside shortly before the game was due to start

At the scene: Judith Moritz, BBC News

The families clapped as the jury left the Hillsborough inquests in Warrington. One woman shouted "God bless the jury."

There were lots of tears as lawyers hugged the families and the shadow home secretary Andy Burnham hugged the families in court.

There were lawyers crying, Andy Burnham was crying and the families were hugging. People said they couldn't take in the enormity of it all.

Trevor Hicks, whose daughters Sarah and Vicky died, told me: "We've done it."

A spontaneous chorus of "You'll Never Walk Alone" was sung outside the courtroom as people raised Liverpool flags above their heads.

Leading campaigners Margaret Aspinall and Trevor Hicks were seen hugging each other in tears.

Ms Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son James died in the disaster, said: "I think we have changed a part of history now - I think that's the legacy the 96 have left."

Barry Devonside, father of Christopher who died aged 18, said: "I never thought in my wildest dreams that we would get this decision.

"We did our best - we couldn't do any more."

A statement on behalf of all of the families said the jury's conclusions "completely vindicate" the long fight for justice.

It added it has brought "significant progress on the journey... and sense of closure to the bereaved".

Prime Minister David Cameron called it a "landmark day" and said the inquests "provide long overdue justice".

He said: "All the families and survivors now have official confirmation of what they knew to be the case - that the Liverpool fans were utterly blameless in the disaster that unfolded at Hillsborough."

Current SYP Chief Constable David Crompton said the force "got the policing... catastrophically wrong".

He said his force "unequivocally" accepts the conclusions of unlawful killing and the wider findings.

"As I have said before, I want to apologise unreservedly to the families and all those affected."

At a later press conference, the Hillsborough Justice Campaign - which is made up of 22 of the bereaved families - called for the resignations of Mr Crompton and the current chief executive of the ambulance service.

Stephen Wright - whose brother Graham died in the disaster - said: "The five South Yorkshire Police legal teams simply pursued the denials of the past, blaming mythical late, drunken, ticketless fans for the deaths of our loved ones."

He added: "Mr Crompton has not only let the police force down but also the general public. He has also let down rank and file police officers, many of whom did their best on the day of the disaster and were themselves traumatised."

Elkan Abrahamson, one of the Hillsborough families' solicitors, said it was "shameful" that SYP and the ambulance service had fought "tooth and nail to avoid adverse findings by the jury" adding, "this turned the inquests into an adversarial battle that took twice as long as it should have done".

Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust Chief Executive, Rod Barnes said it "fully accepted" the jury's conclusions that mistakes were made, adding it was "truly sorry".

The police response to the increasing crowd outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles at Liverpool's match against Nottingham Forest was "slow and uncoordinated", the inquests in Warrington, Cheshire, heard.

The road closure "exacerbated" the situation and there were no filter cordons in place to regulate the movement of spectators.

Attempts to close the perimeter gates were made too late and there were no contingency plans for the "sudden arrival" of a large number of fans, the jury said.

Jurors concluded the commanding officers should have ordered the closing of the tunnel which led directly to the central pens where the fatal crush occurred.

The SYAS failed to establish the nature of the problem at the Leppings Lane end, the inquests heard.

The jury said the failure to recognise and call a major incident led to delays in the emergency response.

Jurors concluded those mistakes contributed to the loss of lives.

In addition, faults with the design and layout of crush barriers within the stadium were highlighted.

There was a lack of dedicated turnstiles for individual pens and there were too few for a capacity crowd, the inquests were told.

The jury heard more than two years of evidence, making it the longest running inquests in British legal history.

Summing up, Sir John told the families the loss of their loved ones would "remain the source of anguish and grief" and he hoped they had gained "at least some comfort" from the decisions.

He continued: "You could not have done more by your loved ones. You have done your duty by them."

He told jurors their "commitment and diligence" had been "remarkable".

While thanking the six women and three men, applause rang out from the public gallery and Sir John remarked he had "never before had a jury clapped".

Liverpool FC's chief executive Ian Ayre welcomed the conclusion that their supporters "were not in any way responsible for what happened at Hillsborough".

He added: "It has been a painful journey for the families and survivors, who have endured and sacrificed so much for so long. The resilience and dignity they have shown throughout their tireless campaign has been humbling and inspirational.

"The 96 men, women and children who were unlawfully killed at Hillsborough will never be forgotten."

Analysis

Clive Coleman, BBC legal correspondent

"A lot of evidence has come to light here and in the police investigation. The inquest has done its job and now the criminal justice system takes over.

"They [Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)] are looking at both organisations and individuals. The unlawful killing conclusion that we have had today the route to it was considering the actions of match commander David Duckenfield.

"The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) can consider a prosecution against David Duckenfield."

The CPS said it would "formally consider whether any criminal charges should be brought against any individual or corporate body based upon all the available evidence".

A criminal investigation into the disaster, Operation Resolve, is being led by Assistant Commissioner Jon Stoddart.

Jenny Hicks, whose teenage daughters Sarah and Vicky died in the disaster, said: "I hope this is an opportunity for John Stoddart and his team, the IPCC and the CPS to look at the results of this inquest and take it as an opportunity to move it forward onto some kind of accountability.

"That's what I'd like to see [because] you can't have, to me, conclusions like this and not have some kind of accountability for those 96 innocent deaths."

[madd0ct0r]

about bloody time.

[Esquire]

I'm assuming not, but is there a statute of limitation for this sort of thing?

[fordlltwm]

I've always felt Sheffield Wednesday get let off a bit too easily in the hillsborough case, but I note that the Jury did note S.W.'s failings as well. The whole disaster was a screw up by ALL involved, not just the police who fucked up then tried to cover up their mess, but by the clubs involved in selling a massive excess of tickets and the F.A. by not making the stadium capacities be realistically measured. However I daren't say this in anymore public a setting as it would lead to a lynching by football fans for suggesting there was more culpability than just the Police.

[Elheru Aran]

I'm assuming not, but is there a statute of limitation for this sort of thing?

It's been almost thirty years. What the heck, indeed.

Fordtwllm, I doubt there are enough fans here that even remember the incident in question to really take umbrage at such a suggestion...

[fordlltwm]

Living in an area with a lot of Liverpool fans you'd be suprised. It would be like cussing their favourite relative to suggest anyone but the police were at fault. It's been passed down through the generations.

[Thanas]

Ah, Liverpool fans. Such delightful people

[Hillary]

Ah, Liverpool fans. Such delightful people

Very unfair to tar all with the same brush. Just because some fans behaved badly, that's no reason not to have sympathy for the 96 fans who died or feel outrage over the various authorities' actions on that day.

[Thanas]

I was referring tothe post directly above mine, but should have quoted it to make sure.

[Zaune]

Living in an area with a lot of Liverpool fans you'd be suprised. It would be like cussing their favourite relative to suggest anyone but the police were at fault. It's been passed down through the generations.

Considering the amount of victim-blaming that went on in the aftermath, most infamously by the Sun, it's not surprising people are a bit defensive.

[Broomstick]

My question is whether or not changes where made to the stadium and/or crowd control procedures to make another such incident less likely.

[Grumman]

Considering the amount of victim-blaming that went on in the aftermath, most infamously by the Sun, it's not surprising people are a bit defensive.

I don't know how much the Sun blamed the spectators, but it's clear that this jury did not blame them enough. The physical mechanism by which a crush occurs demands that a significant fraction of the crowd is trying to shove their way into the space already occupied by other people, which forces those forwards into the people in front of them, and the next line of people into the people in front of them, and so on.

It's possible to do these things without first being a negligent asshole - it's why shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is the go-to example of forbidden speech. It's not possible to do it without first being a negligent asshole when your only motivation is to make the queue for a football game move faster. The failure of crowd control was only a failure to prevent negligent assholes from having an excuse to be negligent assholes.

[madd0ct0r]

Grumman, you are a fucking moron who should stop talking. really.

[Thanas]

Considering the amount of victim-blaming that went on in the aftermath, most infamously by the Sun, it's not surprising people are a bit defensive.

I don't know how much the Sun blamed the spectators, but it's clear that this jury did not blame them enough. The physical mechanism by which a crush occurs demands that a significant fraction of the crowd is trying to shove their way into the space already occupied by other people, which forces those forwards into the people in front of them, and the next line of people into the people in front of them, and so on.

It's possible to do these things without first being a negligent asshole - it's why shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is the go-to example of forbidden speech. It's not possible to do it without first being a negligent asshole when your only motivation is to make the queue for a football game move faster. The failure of crowd control was only a failure to prevent negligent assholes from having an excuse to be negligent assholes.

Dude, just go read something about the crush. Because goddamn, dude.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/201 ... ed-decades

[Broomstick]

I would also like to reference one of the prior threads on the subject of crowd-crush disasters. It's quite lengthy, so I'll skip the first two pages, mostly hyperventilating on what horrible people those involved were, to where the explanations of why anyone in this situation is fucked. Here is the link.

The short version: once the crush starts you can not stop it. There is nothing any individual in the crowd can do to avoid the disaster. The forces involved can bend steel and knock over masonry walls. It's not about people being assholes, it's about physics.

[Vendetta]

My question is whether or not changes where made to the stadium and/or crowd control procedures to make another such incident less likely.

Yes. Hillsborough was the catalyst for the complete removal of standing terraces in English football grounds, replacing them all with all-seater stadiums.

[Elheru Aran]

Living in an area with a lot of Liverpool fans you'd be suprised. It would be like cussing their favourite relative to suggest anyone but the police were at fault. It's been passed down through the generations.

Well I was speaking specifically about the board when I said 'here'...

[NecronLord]

I'm assuming not, but is there a statute of limitation for this sort of thing?

No. The United Kingdom doesn't have statues of limitations on criminal offences, there are some for road traffic offences, and matters before magistrates, but matters as serious as this have no such onerous limitations on justice.

[Crown]

Ah, Liverpool fans. Such delightful people

It was completely unnecessary to post that. You should be shamed of doing it in this thread of all places.

I've always felt Sheffield Wednesday get let off a bit too easily in the hillsborough case, but I note that the Jury did note S.W.'s failings as well. The whole disaster was a screw up by ALL involved, not just the police who fucked up then tried to cover up their mess, but by the clubs involved in selling a massive excess of tickets and the F.A. by not making the stadium capacities be realistically measured. However I daren't say this in anymore public a setting as it would lead to a lynching by football fans for suggesting there was more culpability than just the Police.

Well the reason you'd get 'lynched' is because if Police had done their job 11 million excess fans could have turned up to the match and 96 people wouldn't have died. They failed on their own already established and proven crowd management protocols for the stadium, and afterwards had to falsely concoct the narrative that drunk, ticketless fans rushed the barriers and forced their way in.

No such thing happened. A normal crowd of football fans eager to get into the ground were herded into a pen where 96 were crushed to death because police in charge of crowd management didn't do their job. Thanas has posted the Guardian's special report, I will repost it here, it's worth the read.

Here's the standout part where the police were directly culpable of the unlawful killing of 96 innocent souls (and later lied about it); there was a standing operating procedure known as the "Freeman tactic" which states that IF the police open Gate C THEN the police MUST close the tunnel to the central pens OR the crowd WILL flow into the central pens. On that day the police opened Gate C, but didn't close the tunnel to divert people into the stands. They then deleted every references of the "Freeman tactic" from Lord Justice Taylor and his inquiry.

Considering the amount of victim-blaming that went on in the aftermath, most infamously by the Sun, it's not surprising people are a bit defensive.

I don't know how much the Sun blamed the spectators, but it's clear that this jury did not blame them enough. The physical mechanism by which a crush occurs demands that a significant fraction of the crowd is trying to shove their way into the space already occupied by other people, which forces those forwards into the people in front of them, and the next line of people into the people in front of them, and so on.

It's possible to do these things without first being a negligent asshole - it's why shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is the go-to example of forbidden speech. It's not possible to do it without first being a negligent asshole when your only motivation is to make the queue for a football game move faster. The failure of crowd control was only a failure to prevent negligent assholes from having an excuse to be negligent assholes.

Wow. Just fucking wow.

[Broomstick]

People just do not understand the dynamics of a crowd crush.

10,000 cold sober football fans could have been walking at a sedate, calm pace and by funneling all those people into a small enough spot you could still wind up with people crushed to death without any one person actually shoving another.

I linked to a prior thread where the physics of the forces at work are discussed. Anyone wanting to go hur, hur, the fans were at fault should be required to read that thread before posting.

[Zaune]

And as you can probably tell, this is a very emotive subject for people from Liverpool; practically everyone in the city had at least one friend or relative who could have been one of the 96 dead, or the 766 hospitalised, if not for the luck of the draw.

In fact, here's a Guardian article from the 10th anniversary of the disaster: Those Who Were Left Behind

Peter Carney apologises for his breathlessness. He is talking about the day that he "died", and whenever he does that his chest tightens - the way it tightened when he was among thousands of Liverpool fans crushed at Hillsborough in 1989. But Carney, history tells us, is one of the lucky ones. He lived, while 96 fellow fans died. You can add to that lucky list the man who killed himself in his garden shed a couple of years after the disaster; the two other related suicides; the 25-year-old who has spent the past eight years in a psychiatric unit; the survivor who bottled up his frustration until last Christmas, when he smashed up his home; the young man who heard bones cracking in the pens at Hillsborough and spent years sleeping on the grave of his dead brother; the numerous drugs and alcohol abuse cases; and the couples who are now former couples...

[Grumman]

10,000 cold sober football fans could have been walking at a sedate, calm pace and by funneling all those people into a small enough spot you could still wind up with people crushed to death without any one person actually shoving another.

No you could not. It is impossible, because eventually you reach a point where people cannot move forwards without shoving; if they're not shoving, they aren't moving forwards, which means they aren't producing the density necessary to cause a crush.

Saying that the crowd is blameless is like saying that tailgaters played no role in a pile-up on the freeway. If you're in a pile-up it's either because you didn't give yourself room to stop before colliding with the car in front of you, or because somebody behind you didn't give themselves room to stop before colliding with the car in front of them and rammed them forwards into the next car. Without tailgating it's not a pile-up, it's just a regular old traffic jam.

[Broomstick]

They people behind the ones in front are not, themselves, pushing, they are being pushed. It's not voluntary.

The fact that you keep hammering that the crowd is responsible demonstrates your continued ignorance.

It's like an avalanche - one little snowflake can't hurt you no matter how fast it's tumbling downhill. Get a lot of them, all moving in the same direction and it can smash buildings. Snowflakes in an avalanche aren't exerting more force than in snowfall, it's just all the forces are acting in concert.

Every time we get one of these disasters you always get the kneejerk ignorance going hur, hur, the evil crowd. Always. Because people don't understand the physics involved.

Go back and read the link to the prior thread. People from this forum who actually HAVE been to the stadium in question, in crowds, have described being swept along by the crowd even when it didn't end in disaster. There is a discussion of the physics.

Past a certain density crowds act more like a fluid than a collection of discreet units. One person tripping on the periphery can cause a wave that propagates in the crowd like a ripple from a pebble dropped in water. Get two or more of those waves, precipitated by innocuous events, rippling across a crowd and their energy can combine, resulting in deaths.

[NecronLord]

10,000 cold sober football fans could have been walking at a sedate, calm pace and by funneling all those people into a small enough spot you could still wind up with people crushed to death without any one person actually shoving another.

No you could not. It is impossible, because eventually you reach a point where people cannot move forwards without shoving; if they're not shoving, they aren't moving forwards, which means they aren't producing the density necessary to cause a crush.

Saying that the crowd is blameless is like saying that tailgaters played no role in a pile-up on the freeway. If you're in a pile-up it's either because you didn't give yourself room to stop before colliding with the car in front of you, or because somebody behind you didn't give themselves room to stop before colliding with the car in front of them and rammed them forwards into the next car. Without tailgating it's not a pile-up, it's just a regular old traffic jam.

Cite peer reviewed academic sources, industry sources, or other relevant authoritative research on crowd control to back up your claims, or concede. Broomy has already done that in a previous thread. Stating your personal opinion is not sufficient to rebut that.

Failure to comply will be considered a violation of DR5.

[Hillary]

I was referring tothe post directly above mine, but should have quoted it to make sure.

Fair enough - my apologies for not spotting that.