6. The treatment of families and friends of those who died

This chapter includes witness accounts, images and descriptions of scenes that may be distressing.

What was investigated?

Under the terms of reference for the managed investigation, Operation Resolve investigated:

f) the actions of police officers in the gymnasium, in particular whether the treatment and questioning of relatives was appropriate. The actions of police officers at the Hillsborough Boys’ Club, and any other complaints about the treatment of friends or relatives on the day. The time parameters will be from 3.06pm on 15 April 1989 to the time when the last of the facilities shown below closed down—this will cover events between the match being stopped and the completion of arrangements to assist families at the following locations:

The gymnasium, Northern General Hospital, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Ecclesfield Casualty Bureau, Merseyside Casualty Bureau, Hammerton Road Police Station, Hillsborough Boys’ Club, Forbes Road Church Hall, Meade House, Kelvin Centre, Burngreave Vestry, and the Medico-Legal Centre
 

What was found?

• Despite the efforts of many volunteers, medical professionals and individual police officers, the treatment of families and friends of those who died in the disaster lacked compassion. Procedure was adhered to in an unnecessarily rigid way, particularly in relation to the identification process, which added to the distress of families and friends.

• Families and friends repeatedly encountered a lack of information and coordination between sites. This resulted in situations such as parents being taken to see their son who had died in hospital, only to discover that he had been transported back to the gymnasium for the identification process. 

• The identification process was largely determined by Dr Popper, the Coroner. He decided that all of those who died must be formally identified at the gymnasium. He also decided that as a first stage in the identification process, those coming to identify a loved one would look at photographs of each of those who had died rather than having to view multiple bodies. This process was adhered even when property found on someone who had died could potentially have spared friends and family that step of the process. 

• Police officers had the right to suggest alternative approaches to Dr Popper, but there is no evidence that they did. Instead, they largely followed any directions from him to the letter, regardless of the impact this may have on families and friends. 

• Viewing the photographs was a harrowing experience and little consideration was given to the way the photographs were presented to families and friends. For example, the photographs were not separated into age, gender or any other descriptive categories.

• Some families have said that officers they dealt with refused to allow them to touch their loved ones and on occasion told them they were the “property of the Coroner”. While this was not the experience for all families, there was no reason from a policing or coronial perspective why family members could not hold their loved ones.

• Many of those who gave an identification statement have said police officers asked them about their and their loved one’s consumption of alcohol and possession of match tickets. Such information was not needed for any procedural purpose. However, only a small number of the identification statements recorded included references to either issue. There is no record of any senior officer instructing colleagues to ask such questions.

• The Casualty Bureau set up by SYP should have been the single point of contact to help families and friends seeking their loved ones, and to help the police contact relatives, but it was overwhelmed by the volume of calls. It was only the second time SYP had set a Casualty Bureau up and it had never been properly tested; numerous practical issues occurred, limiting its effectiveness.

• One of these issues was that the telephone numbers supposed to be used for contact between the Casualty Bureau and hospitals and police sites were given to the public—meaning there were no dedicated lines. This disrupted information flow.

• The facilities made available for families and friends to wait in were chosen because they were convenient rather than because they were suited to the purpose. Though police officers were present, support for families and friends was largely organised by social services and volunteers.

• Throughout, there was no overarching coordination of the different activities underway. No police officer was in overall control. None of the SYP senior leadership team took any role or even showed any apparent interest in what was happening. This meant that support for families was disjointed, and the effectiveness of the efforts of the many volunteers, social care and medical professionals and individual police officers was limited.
 

Significant new evidence 

The main sources of new evidence around the treatment of families and friends were additional statements, or testimony to the Goldring Inquests, from those involved. Some statements, such as those made as part of the investigation into a complaint about the way individuals were treated, specifically focused on the person’s experiences in the hours after the disaster.

Operation Resolve made further use of the Racal recordings of conversations with the Force Control Room. It also examined two SYP books known as ‘property other than found property registers’ that were used at the gymnasium and MLC to record the personal possessions of a number of those who died.

1. In the years since the Hillsborough disaster, many family members and friends of those who died have provided harrowing accounts of their experiences in the hours that followed. Within these deeply personal stories, there have been common themes: the difficulty in getting information about their loved ones, the chaotic scenes at the various locations to which they were directed, the traumatising nature of the process used for identifying those who died and the repeated unfeeling bureaucracy of some officials. Many have also recounted how they were questioned by police officers either about their own alcohol consumption, or that of their loved one.
    
2. Together, these accounts have painted a striking picture of an ongoing response to the disaster that failed on both a procedural and personal level; that added to the anguish of those first hours and caused enduring distress and trauma. 
    
3. This chapter examines the way that the families and friends of those who died were treated by the police in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. It covers the period from just after the match was stopped to the point when the last of the facilities made available to the families and friends was closed. It includes extracts from some of the accounts provided by family members and friends but does not seek to represent the experiences of the families or to speak for them. Instead, its focus, in line with the terms of reference for Operation Resolve’s managed investigation, is on how SYP interacted with families and friends of those who died, and whether this followed the expected standards of the day.
    
4. Operation Resolve also investigated a number of complaints from families and friends about the way they were treated by the police. The complainants have been informed of the outcomes.
    
5. A further, more personal insight into the experiences of the families of those who died in the disaster can be found in Chapter 1 of the 2017 report by Bishop James Jones, the former Bishop of Liverpool and Chair of the HIP, ‘The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power: A Report to Ensure the Pain and Suffering of the Hillsborough Families is not Repeated’.