As a result of the decision to set a 3.15pm cut-off time, WMP was tasked to revisit two witnesses who, in their initial accounts, had given evidence that indicated the young man they had assisted (Kevin Williams) was still alive after that time. This contradicted the pathology findings from the post-mortem.
The two witnesses were PC Bruder, a Merseyside Police constable who had been at the Semi-Final as a spectator and then helped with the rescue effort, and SC Martin of SYP, who had been on duty at the match.
Both have subsequently alleged that WMP actively sought to get them to change their evidence, because it was inconvenient to the Popper Inquests. Their interactions with WMP were also depicted in the 2022 ITV docudrama ‘Anne’ which focused on the campaigning efforts of Kevin’s mother, Anne Williams, in relation to the disaster.
PC Bruder complained to the IOPC that Inspector Matthew Sawers of WMP (Insp Sawers) had sought to get him to change his statement and to put words into his mouth. SC Martin has stated publicly that she was bullied by Detective Sergeant Julie Appleton of WMP (DS Appleton) to change her statement and retract the comments about Kevin. SC Martin did not complain to the IOPC.
The IOPC investigated both allegations in detail.
In his initial statement, PC Bruder had described how he had attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the young man later identified as Kevin while an SJA volunteer attempted heart massage. This was corroborated by photographic evidence and a statement from the SJA volunteer.
PC Bruder stated that he had felt “a slight pulse” in Kevin’s neck before he started resuscitation attempts.
The individual inquest for Kevin was held on 2 May 1990 and evidence from PC Bruder’s original statement was included in the summary. After the summary was read, the pathologist who had conducted the post-mortem on Kevin, Dr David Slater, gave evidence. He said that Kevin would have become unconscious within seconds of receiving his injuries and died before he was rescued from the pens. This therefore contradicted PC Bruder’s account that Kevin was still alive when he reached him on the pitch.
On 3 May 1990, PC Bruder was visited at home by Insp Sawers. Insp Sawers was not accompanied by any other officer. By the end of that day, PC Bruder had signed a new statement, which included a number of differences from his original statement. Overall, these made his evidence considerably less definite about what he had witnessed than his original statement had been.
For example, in the statement from 3 May 1990, PC Bruder said that while he was certain that he checked for a pulse in Kevin’s neck, he could not be certain that he found one. His new statement included the comment: “I may have also touched the area of the ‘Adams Apple’ or felt something in the neck region which I originally thought was a pulse but may have been mistaken.”
On 4 May 1990, Dr Popper explained, in open court, that Insp Sawers had visited PC Bruder the previous day “because we wanted to be sure we had the facts.” Insp Sawers was called to give evidence. He summarised the new account from PC Bruder and what had changed. It was made wholly clear to the jury that Insp Sawers had been to see PC Bruder at Dr Popper’s request and that Insp Sawers had led the discussion with PC Bruder.
The changes in PC Bruder’s evidence were examined by the Stuart-Smith Scrutiny in 1997. PC Bruder stated to Lord Justice Stuart-Smith that he had not been put under pressure to change his account.
In 2012, following the publication of the HIP Report, PC Bruder wrote to SYP to make a formal complaint about the WMP officer who had interviewed him. In his letter, PC Bruder alleged that:
the officer had made a deliberate attempt to persuade him to change his account, using information the officer knew to be false
the officer then repeated this false information under oath at the inquest into the death of Kevin Williams
in doing so, the officer conspired with others to pervert the course of justice
PC Bruder did not complain that he was pressured to change his statement.
In 2015, PC Bruder gave a statement to the IOPC as part of the investigation into his complaint. In it, he said that after being at his house for around three hours, he could sense that Insp Sawers was becoming impatient. He recalled that it was “absolutely clear” that Insp Sawers had been sent to obtain a further statement addressing the anomalies between his original statement and the other evidence that had been presented to the inquest. He said: “What he wanted to include in this further statement was clearly at odds with what I was willing to concede. Whilst I did not feel threatened by his presence, I would describe the atmosphere as extremely awkward, and certainly tense.”
PC Bruder also referred to the fact that while Insp Sawers was at his house, he made a phone call to Dr Slater. After the call commenced, Insp Sawers handed the phone to PC Bruder to speak to Dr Slater. PC Bruder stated that Dr Slater informed him that “it was highly likely that Kevin Williams was brain dead when he was placed on the pitch, and that it was also highly likely that I would not have been able to feel a pulse.”
Following the phone call, PC Bruder agreed to give a further statement, that reflected Dr Slater’s assessment. He said that he and Insp Sawers had detailed discussions about the wording of the further statement and that he refused to concede one point, about the presence of an ambulance on the pitch; it was later confirmed that PC Bruder’s recollection of this was correct.
PC Bruder told the IOPC that after Insp Sawers left, he reflected on the conversation and felt sure that something was not quite right. Later in the statement to the IOPC, he said: “I felt strongly that DI Sawers and Dr. Slater had made a conscious and determined effort to put words into my mouth in relation to medical aspects of my evidence relating to Kevin Williams.”
The IOPC asked Insp Sawers about his recollection of visiting PC Bruder. He said: “Dr Popper simply asked me to visit the witness and clarify points, as there were some points in the statement that sat at odds or uncomfortably with the summary as a whole.”
He remembered organising the phone call to Dr Slater but said: “I believe Dr Popper asked me to do that.” Insp Sawers recalled that Dr Popper wanted to be updated as to the progress of his meeting with PC Bruder; he therefore telephoned Dr Popper from PC Bruder’s house. According to Insp Sawers, Dr Popper suggested that Insp Sawers should telephone Dr Slater and update him too.
Insp Sawers was adamant that he in no way pressured PC Bruder.
Both PC Bruder and Insp Sawers gave evidence at the Goldring Inquests. Their evidence was largely consistent with their statements to the IOPC and, in PC Bruder’s case, with previous accounts he had given.
The alterations to PC Bruder’s evidence were made wholly transparently. While there remain some important differences in the various accounts of what happened—notably about the involvement of Dr Slater—PC Bruder’s revised statement served to clarify the original one, not replace it. The consequence of some of the clarifications is that PC Bruder’s evidence was less definite in some areas than it originally had been. However, it was still made clear, both in the revised statement and in the oral evidence Insp Sawers gave during Kevin’s inquest, that PC Bruder saw some movement in Kevin’s body.
At the Goldring Inquests on 8 December 2015, expert medical witness Dr Jasmeet Soar was asked for his view on the evidence that had been heard about Kevin. In relation to PC Bruder’s evidence that he saw Kevin twitch and felt a faint pulse, Dr Soar said that one possibility was that PC Bruder could have been mistaken. However, he stated that PC Bruder’s account was plausible, and these were possibly signs of life. Dr Soar said that the twitches of Kevin’s head implied there was some blood flow to the brain. However, combined with the fact that there was only a weak pulse, Dr Soar suggested that they could have meant that Kevin’s heart was still beating, or that it had recently stopped beating and Kevin was in cardiac arrest.
Dr Soar commented that PC Bruder’s decision to continue CPR was correct and that the video material indicated PC Bruder had carried out CPR in a textbook fashion.
Having considered the expert evidence of the pathologists, the jury at the Goldring Inquests determined that Kevin died between 3.05pm—when photographic evidence suggested he may have still been alive—and 3.45pm, when PC Bruder and the SJA volunteer stopped CPR.
In her initial recollection, SC Martin wrote that she had helped carry a young boy into the gymnasium. He had stopped breathing so she “gave him the kiss of life, and heart massage”. She wrote that once in the gymnasium the boy started breathing, opened his eyes and said the word “mum”. He then died. This again was later identified as Kevin.
Her evidence was not accepted by the jury at the Goldring Inquests, who determined Kevin had died before he was taken to the gymnasium. Dr Soar stated that he and his fellow pathologist did not think it was plausible that Kevin regained consciousness in the way SC Martin had described. He offered a possibility that SC Martin had heard an “agonal breath” but emphasised this was very unlikely.
SC Martin has described, on multiple occasions, being pressured by a WMP officer, DS Appleton into changing her original account. She has said she was visited repeatedly, and that on each occasion the pressure escalated. She described DS Appleton reportedly suggesting she had made her original account up and, on the final visit, saying that SC Martin had not even been at the disaster.
During this final visit on 17 March 1990, a couple of weeks before Kevin’s inquest, SC Martin said she burst into tears and agreed to sign a statement to stop the visits. She told the IOPC that DS Appleton had brought a pre-written statement with her for SC Martin to sign. However, the IOPC has examined the signed statement, which is handwritten, and includes several crossings-out and corrections, that appear to have been made while the statement was being drafted. The corrections are initialled by SC Martin. These factors indicate that the statement was not pre-written but rather written up by DS Appleton in discussion with SC Martin.
SC Martin gave a slightly different account to the Goldring Inquests but still emphasised that she had been pressured.
DS Appleton gave evidence to the Goldring Inquests the same day. She confirmed that she had visited SC Martin at her home on 17 March 1990. She said that this was at the request of Dr Popper, because SC Martin had stated “that Kevin had said ‘Mum’ and the coroner thought it was highly unlikely, with the injuries Kevin had sustained, that he would be in a position to speak.”
DS Appleton told the Goldring Inquests that she had visited SC Martin alone and on only on one occasion—though she accepted that the visit had lasted several hours. She said she asked SC Martin if she would like to make a new statement but emphasised that she did not have to. DS Appleton stated that she could not recall in precise detail the conversation but said that she had written the statement based on SC Martin’s words and given her the opportunity to read the statement before signing it.
DS Appleton was asked whether she was sent to persuade SC Martin to change the “inconvenient” part of her evidence. She rejected this. She also strongly rejected the suggestion that she had bullied SC Martin.
In a subsequent statement to the IOPC, DS Appleton provided a very similar account.
The accounts of DS Appleton and SC Martin are wholly at odds with each other.
The only witness to the visits was SC Martin’s mother, who was in the house at the time of DS Appleton’s visit(s). Mrs Martin gave evidence at the Stuart-Smith Scrutiny. She said that DS Appleton had come to their house about four times and that she recalled her daughter saying that DS Appleton was bullying her.
In his report, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith commented that he “preferred” the account of DS Appleton over those of SC Martin and Mrs Martin. He offered no further explanation as to why.
Taken as a whole, the IOPC has found no evidence to corroborate SC Martin’s allegations that DS Appleton bullied or pressured her to change her statement, beyond her mother’s evidence to Lord Justice Stuart-Smith. The IOPC has found no corroborative evidence of repeated visits to SC Martin, again beyond her mother’s evidence to Lord Justice Stuart-Smith.
While SC Martin has publicly alleged that she was pressured, she has not complained to the IOPC about this or about the actions of DS Appleton.
In both cases, the original statements were made available to the jury and Dr Popper clearly explained why additional enquiries had been made. The process was therefore transparent. The WMP officers involved have both stated they were instructed to contact the witnesses by Dr Popper, which is supported by what Dr Popper said in court. The underlying decision to check the evidence of both witnesses appears a valid one, in keeping with the purpose of an inquest.
However, there is no independent record of the conversation between the witness and WMP officer in either case. The IOPC did not uphold PC Bruder’s complaint, as PC Bruder has consistently stated, including at the Goldring Inquests, that Insp Sawers did not pressure him to change his account or to include information which Insp Sawers knew or believed to be false.
