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Arrival of Ch Supt Nesbit

  1. By 3.10pm, a huge number of police officers were involved in the rescue effort. Figure 5J shows the situation at 15:11:30. Numerous officers had climbed on the perimeter fence; some were in Pen 2, to the left of the photo. Many more were on the pitch. Some supporters were also on the fence; others were being helped into the West Stand above and still more were climbing the radial fences between pens. 

 

View of the West Terrace at Hillsborough Stadium at 15:11:30

Figure 5J: View of the West Terrace, 15:11:30 (Source: BBC)

  1. Figure 5K, taken at 3.11pm, shows the chaotic nature of the response from a different angle. While some officers were predominantly engaged at the exit gates, others were standing further back from the fence, appearing unsure how to help. Some may have been part of a cordon. The photograph offers no sign of a coordinated rescue effort.

 

The front of the West Terrace at Hillsborough Stadium at 3.11pm

Figure 5K: The front of the West Terrace, 3.11pm (Source: SYP)

  1. It was around this time that Ch Supt Nesbit arrived at the Leppings Lane end. Ch Supt Nesbit was the head of the SYP Traffic Division. In an account from 1989, he explained that he had been on patrol in Sheffield city centre and arrived at Hillsborough Stadium shortly after the referee had stopped the match. His arrival was not in response to the call for Operation Support. When he got to the gymnasium, Insp Sewell told him they were evacuating the West Terrace and that supporters had been injured. 
     
  2. Ch Supt Nesbit went onto the pitch at the Spion Kop end and saw what he first thought to be a pitch invasion. However, he then spotted that some of the supporters climbing over the perimeter fence were being assisted by police officers. In his 1989 account, he said that as he approached the goal area, he saw that the perimeter track was filled with police officers and supporters, and that a number of casualties were being attended to by SJA personnel and uniformed police officers. 
     
  3. He said that when he reached the front of Pen 3, “to my horror I could see bodies piled on top of each other with other spectators being pressed against the fencing.” He said that Gate 3 was open but blocked by two supporters who were unable to move; he assumed they had died. He instructed officers to try to move them, to free the gateway. 
     
  4. He quickly realised that “Police Officers and spectators in their endeavours to help, were getting in each others way.” He instructed officers to form a chain onto the pitch, so that casualties could be pulled out and carried away from the pens.
     
  5. This approach began to create some order in the rescue effort. Figure 5L shows the scene at 15:20:24. By this time, Supt Greenwood was standing on what appears to be a stepladder with a loud hailer in his hand. Ch Supt Nesbit was in the open gateway, attempting to pull people out of Pen 3. There were fewer supporters at the gate, with the police taking control of the rescue operation.

 

The front of Pen 3, as viewed from the West Stand at Hillsborough Stadium at 15:20:24

Figure 5L: The front of Pen 3, as viewed from the West Stand, 15:20:24 (Source: BBC)

  1. The more organised response at the gates was assisted by having increased access to the pens. In a statement from 2014, Inspector Richard Dews recalled that shortly after Ch Supt Nesbit arrived at Gate 3, he saw police officers and supporters kicking and pulling the wire of the perimeter fence back to create another escape route. He said that he radioed the PCB and asked for bolt cutters to assist in cutting the mesh. 
     
  2. At 15:13:09, the Racal system recorded a radio transmission from the PCB to the Force Control Room, requesting that SYCFS be contacted to attend the stadium with cutting equipment. The Force Control Room promptly contacted their counterparts at SYCFS and requested this, but they were still unable to provide SYCFS with details of what had happened. However, the Force Control Room operator did refer to there having been a “major accident” and later in the conversation “a major incident inside the ground”, even though one had not been formally declared, and they did not have the knowledge or authority to do so. In accordance with the SYCFS Major Incident Contingency Procedures, SYCFS dispatched six standard fire engines, a control unit and an emergency tender (a vehicle designed to carry extra water supplies) to Hillsborough Stadium.
     
  3. The first of these did not reach Hillsborough Stadium until 3.22pm. By this time, supporters and police officers had managed to bend back a small section of the perimeter fence at the front of Pen 3, adjacent to the radial fence with Pen 4. This created an additional escape route from the pens, through which officers and supporters worked to free more people. The impact of this is shown in figure 5M, taken from BBC footage a few minutes later at 15:26:28. By this time, large numbers of officers were inside Pen 3, both at Gate 3 to the right-hand side of the ambulance and at the newly created break in the perimeter fencing, at the bottom left of the image. 

 

The rescue effort aided by the hole in the perimeter fence at Hillsborough Stadium at 15:26.28

Figure 5M: The rescue effort aided by the hole in the perimeter fence, 15:26.28 (Source: BBC)