The third instance the IOPC referred to was during a telephone conversation between Norman Bettison and the head of HMIC, David O’Dowd. This took place after the appointment was challenged; Mr O’Dowd was asked by the MPA to provide a press release about it, to reassure people that the process had been robust, and the appointment had been made properly. In it, Mr O’Dowd wrote: “Comments have been made about Mr Bettison ‘playing a key role in the post Hillsborough events’. This is factually incorrect and his role was peripheral.”
In a statement to the IOPC in October 2016, Mr O’Dowd said that before he wrote the press release, he spoke to Norman Bettison who “assured me that his role in the enquiry had been peripheral.”
On 28 June 2017, Norman Bettison was charged with four offences of misconduct in public office. One of these offences was related to “untruthfully describing his role in the response of the South Yorkshire Police Force to the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster to Sir David O'Dowd as ‘peripheral’.”
Following this announcement, Mr O’Dowd contacted the CPS to express his concern about the charge as he was not certain that Norman Bettison had used the word peripheral. He then gave a further statement to the IOPC, in which he explained: “My use of the word ‘peripheral’ has caused me concern, as I am not sure where it actually came from. It is not a word I would normally use. I can only assume that the word was used by either Dan Crompton when he briefed me about Mr Bettison, or Mr Bettison himself when I spoke to him on 23/10/98 on the telephone.”
There are no records of exactly what was said in the call on 23 October 1998, but in his statement to the MPA on 2 November, Norman Bettison described his association with the Hillsborough disaster as “a peripheral link more than a decade ago”.
In his first prepared statement to the IOPC, Norman Bettison commented that his link to the disaster was peripheral. However, he added: “I do not say, in any contemporaneous account, and have no recollection of ever saying, that my role in the aftermath was a peripheral one.”
The distinction between his peripheral role in the disaster itself, and his non-peripheral role in the aftermath, may not have been clear to all members of the MPA.
Nonetheless, Mr O’Dowd was clear that whether the exact word “peripheral” was used or not, he did not feel he had been misled.
On 21 August 2018, the CPS announced that, following a review of evidence, the prosecution would be discontinued. This decision was challenged under the Victims’ Right to Review Scheme. The evidence was reviewed by a different prosecutor, who upheld the decision to discontinue.
