Consistent evidence of an attempt to deflect blame
The IOPC investigation has not identified any single act, or found a document, that unequivocally demonstrates a clear intention to this effect. However, it has found evidence of patterns of behaviour by senior officers within SYP, over a substantial period of time, which together indicate a deliberate and sustained attempt to deflect or minimise blame.
Broadly, this evidence relates to the way that a group of senior officers within SYP, with the assistance of the legal team appointed by the force’s insurers (rather than the force’s in-house solicitors), sought to show that the disaster was not caused by failings on the part of SYP corporately, or on the part of individual officers. Instead, they advanced a case that the disaster was a result of unprecedented and unforeseeable events—meaning that SYP could not be blamed for failing to foresee, or prepare for, what happened.
The following examples of this can be identified from the initial period up to the publication of the Taylor Interim Report.
The core team of officers and legal representatives took steps to control the content of the accounts that were submitted to WMP and the Taylor Inquiry, in many cases leading to substantive amendments being made to officers’ accounts, as detailed in paragraphs 9.129–9.147. Notable amendments included removal of many comments that criticised the inaction of senior officers and of all comments related to previous actions to close the tunnel to the centre pens. When WMP alerted CC Wright to concerns raised by junior SYP officers about this review and amendment process, CC Wright did not seek to stop it (see paragraphs 9.125–9.128).
SYP actively sought evidence that purported to demonstrate supporters’ alcohol consumption, including through videos and photos that showed litter which potentially could have been left by supporters (see paragraphs 9.11–9.27), and by asking officers to include in their accounts comment on the mood of supporters (see paragraphs 9.85–9.88).
Senior officers, including the match commanders, were invited to meet and agree suitable answers to potential criticisms of them, and of the police operation in general, before they gave evidence to the Taylor Inquiry (see paragraphs 10.94–10.104). In some cases, the answers they then gave could not have been based on their personal experience.
In SYP’s written submissions and the oral evidence of officers, it was repeatedly asserted that there was very little difference between the police operation at the 1989 FA Cup Semi-Final and the police operation at the 1988 Semi-Final (see paragraphs 3.9–3.10), and evidence to the contrary was minimised (see paragraph 10.39).
SYP maintained that previous police actions to close the tunnel to the centre pens were solely the result of junior officers acting on their own initiative and that SYP was not responsible for monitoring capacity on the Leppings Lane terraces. In line with the way that all references to past actions to close the tunnel were removed from SYP officers’ initial accounts (see paragraphs 9.145–9.146), several senior officers who had been on duty argued in their evidence to the Taylor Inquiry that SWFC stewards were responsible for monitoring capacity and safety in the pens. However, their accounts contradicted the evidence other SYP officers had given in the 1985 court case of Harris v Sheffield Utd (see paragraphs 9.151–9.153), as well as comments some of the same officers had made in meetings following the disaster (see paragraphs 9.148–9.150).
The IOPC has identified a range of evidence that appears to undermine the denials made by Ch Supt Duckenfield, Ch Supt Mole, Supt Greenwood, Supt Marshall and Supt Murray at the Taylor Inquiry and Popper Inquests of their prior knowledge of police tactics such as tunnel closure (see paragraphs 10.70–10.82).
These denials mirrored the approach taken in SYP’s written submissions to the Taylor Inquiry, where evidence that may have indicated police responsibility for monitoring the capacity of the pens and controlling access to them, via closing the tunnel, was removed from the final versions, despite having been in earlier drafts.
Further, SYP actively sought to gather and submit additional written evidence to the Taylor Inquiry to refute oral evidence, given by non-police witnesses, that SYP was responsible for monitoring the pens (see paragraphs 10.106–10.109).
As a whole, these actions meant that SYP’s evidence to the Taylor Inquiry painted a largely consistent picture of its officers being overcome by unforeseeable circumstances, including unprecedented levels of drunkenness among the supporters. Lord Justice Taylor summarised this evidence in his interim report as follows: “the police case was to blame the fans for being late and drunk, and to blame the Club for failing to monitor the pens.”
Given the considerable differences between this narrative and the evidence of other parties—notably the evidence provided by supporters—Lord Justice Taylor described the SYP case as an “unrealistic approach” and concluded that the main cause of the disaster was a failure of police control.
