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9. SYP’s collection of evidence

What was investigated?

The IOPC investigated:
The actions of police officers and those providing legal advice to police officers in relation to the collection of evidence, in particular:

a) the role of the teams led by Chief Superintendent Terry Wain and Chief Superintendent Donald Denton 
b) the direction given to officers not to complete notebooks or duty statements
c) the process of obtaining handwritten accounts, and the way some of those accounts were subsequently amended, including:

  i) the actions of officers who agreed to amend their accounts 
  ii) the actions of any officer involved in asking them to do so 

d) whether amended accounts were put forward on behalf of any police officer which they had not agreed and/or signed
e) whether the amendments were made in an attempt to deflect blame from the police
 

What was found?

• Some of the earliest actions by SYP to collect evidence after the disaster involved taking photographs of the stadium and areas around it, including of rubbish bins at the Leppings Lane end on the day of the disaster. In the days that followed, other officers collected rubbish along major routes that Liverpool supporters may have taken to Sheffield. These actions appear to have been an attempt to gather evidence about alcohol consumption.

• After the disaster, SYP officers were asked to produce written accounts of their experiences on the day, on plain paper rather than the more familiar approach of producing statements which met Criminal Justice Act 1967 standards. One of these standards is that statements should be factual and should not include opinions (which are generally deemed inadmissible as evidence). When writing their accounts, officers were invited to include their “fears, feelings and observations” and specifically to comment on “the mood of the fans”.

• There is conflicting evidence about whether officers were instructed not to make entries in their pocket notebooks. While some recalled such an instruction, many more did not, and the IOPC found numerous pocket notebooks with entries related to the day.

• Some 327 officers’ accounts were amended before they were submitted to WMP and the Taylor Inquiry. This figure was more than 100 higher than previous reviews of the evidence had found. While some of the amendments were relatively minor, such as correcting spelling or other typographical errors, many resulted in several paragraphs being removed or rewritten.

• The primary justification given by SYP officers and the force’s supporting legal team for the review and amendment of officers’ accounts was to remove opinion or hearsay. While some of the material that was removed did amount to officers’ opinions, the IOPC’s analysis found that a lot of opinion was left in the accounts.

• The decision to review the accounts was made after SYP was asked to submit them to the Taylor Inquiry. SYP had originally asked its officers to provide their accounts as part of its internal investigation into what had happened, with the expectation that WMP would take statements from the officers. However, at a certain point, it was determined that WMP would not take statements from officers.

• Initially, accounts were reviewed by Mr Metcalf, a solicitor who was acting for SYP in 1989–90, who sent his suggested changes to senior police officers. SYP largely treated these suggestions as instructions and amended the accounts. Accounts received later on were reviewed by a team of SYP officers.

• Accounts were sometimes amended without the officers that had written them being told. Some of those who noticed changes that they were not comfortable with were pressured to accept the amended version. Only one officer has stated that he continually resisted that pressure and did not sign an amended version.

• There was a consistent pattern across all reviewers, including the officers as well as Mr Metcalf, of removing or rewording evidence that appeared to criticise senior officers or suggested there had been chaos or a lack of control. Most strikingly, every reference to SYP officers monitoring the crowd in the pens at previous games or taking action to close the tunnel which led to the centre pens once they were full, was removed from officers’ accounts. These were potentially key points of criticism of SYP’s operation on the day of the disaster.
 

Significant new evidence 

The IOPC obtained a range of new evidence in relation to SYP’s collection of evidence. This included:

• three separate videos recorded by members of the SYP Traffic Division on 17 and 18 April 1989, in which they collected empty cans and bottles on main routes to Sheffield that Liverpool supporters could have taken 

• more than 8,000 pocket notebooks from relevant periods, of which 359 were found to include entries related to the disaster

• a telex dated 17 April 1989 and marked from the Chief Constable for the “Information of Chief Superintendents”, which included instructions for officers who had been involved on the day of the disaster to “prepare a note in the form of an aide-memoire – not a statement – of their recollections of what occurred” 

• attendance notes and other documentation held by Hammond Suddards, the firm of solicitors that represented SYP at this stage—this information had been disclosed to the HIP, but only at the very end of its work, so had not been assessed in depth

• statements from many of the officers whose accounts were amended, which covered, among other things, their awareness of the amendment process

 

  1. As the force responsible for policing on the day of the disaster, SYP was also responsible for securing evidence in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. However, the evening after the disaster, SYP announced that the investigation of what happened would be taken over by WMP. 
     
  2. On 17 April 1989, the Government ordered a public inquiry into the disaster, led by Lord Justice Taylor. WMP was appointed to collect evidence for this. On 18 April, senior detectives from SYP—who had been overseeing the evidence collection until that point—met with senior officers from WMP. It was agreed at this meeting that “the limits of the South Yorkshire Police enquiry should be to the preservation of evidence and no further.” Within days, WMP had taken over the investigation and suspended all enquiries by SYP officers.
     
  3. Despite this, SYP did continue to collect evidence, in part to assist in the compilation of a written submission from the force that was required by the Taylor Inquiry. This submission, known as a ‘proof of evidence’, is examined in more detail in chapter 10.
     
  4. Evidence was collected in various forms, including through written accounts from SYP officers who had been on duty on 15 April. The HIP Report highlighted that these accounts had been produced in an unusual format—on plain paper, rather than as formal signed statements under Criminal Justice Act rules—and that some of them were amended before they were submitted to WMP and the Taylor Inquiry. While this was not the first time that the amendments had come to light (the issue had been discussed during the Scrutiny of new evidence led by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith in 1997), the HIP Report demonstrated that amendments were more frequent and potentially more significant than Lord Justice Stuart-Smith had identified.
     
  5. The HIP Report also repeated an allegation that “in contrast to the professional training,” SYP officers were instructed not to write about their actions on the day of the disaster in their pocket notebooks. This referred to the fact that standard practice requires all police officers to make notes of key events in their day, such as when they arrest someone or gather any form of evidence. They can refer to their pocket notebook later to help them complete a statement or, in some cases, when giving evidence in court.
     
  6. In its referral to the IOPC following the publication of the HIP Report in October 2012, SYP asked the IOPC to investigate the potential criminal offences of:
     
    • “pervert[ing] the course of justice by altering accounts/statements”, on the basis that “officers altered their accounts or statements to remove critical or contentious matters”
    • “pervert[ing] the course of justice by not making pocket book entries”, adding “officers were instructed to make handwritten accounts on blank sheets of paper and not pocket book entries”
       
  7. The IOPC investigation into SYP’s evidence collection began by conducting an in-depth review of all SYP officers’ accounts, comparing the original accounts, the versions that had amendments marked on them, and the ‘final’ versions submitted to WMP and the Taylor Inquiry. The IOPC also confirmed that the amended versions were used for the Popper Inquests and included by WMP in the file of evidence it prepared for the DPP as part of its criminal investigation. IOPC intelligence analysts then examined the amendments for specific themes and patterns.
     
  8. Investigators also sought to build a picture of how the SYP evidence-collection process—in particular the amendment process—had developed. This involved reviewing minutes of meetings, including internal meetings involving SYP officers only and meetings between SYP and Hammond Suddards, the firm of solicitors appointed to advise SYP on responding to the claims for damages (rather than SYP using its in-house legal team). Investigators also examined the extensive correspondence between the organisations, and the documentation gathered by the Stuart-Smith Scrutiny in relation to the amendment of accounts.
     
  9. An initial assessment of the evidence indicated that junior officers had little or no control of the evidence collection or amendment process. Senior IOPC investigators therefore decided to focus the investigative effort on those who devised and managed the process. This included not only senior officers but also SYP’s legal advisers. Though the IOPC’s work is focused on the investigation of police conduct, it is permitted to investigate and evaluate the actions of third parties where these may help to explain the actions of police officers.