• Read more about Explanations for the amendment process

1. Mr Metcalf, Ch Supt Denton and DCI Foster were all interviewed by the IOPC under caution in relation to their role in amending officers’ accounts. Mr Metcalf provided a prepared statement to the IOPC and did not answer investigators’ questions, as is his legal right. 
    
2. In the prepared statement, he explained his rationale in reviewing the accounts was “to keep the statements as factual as possible, to clarify inconsistencies or ambiguities within statements and between other statements, to remove comment and irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible evidence, to tone down intemperate language, and to allow the witness to present the whole of their admissible evidence.” He accepted that in following this rationale he may, on occasion, have inadvertently suggested the removal of some factual content but emphasised this was not his intention. He further stated that his review comments were advice, not instructions. In a later response to the IOPC, he highlighted numerous instances where he had not suggested the removal or amendment of comments that appeared to criticise senior officers or that referenced communication difficulties on the day. 
    
3. While reiterating that he did not at any point intend to remove any facts from officers’ accounts, Mr Metcalf stated to the IOPC: “I am willing to accept that in a small number of cases my exercise of judgement could be criticised.” The IOPC’s evidence indicates that this significantly underplays his role. At his recommendation, factual information was removed repeatedly, following a consistent pattern: in particular to remove any reference to SYP having previously taken action to control access to the centre pens or close the central tunnel. While it may have been beneficial or desirable to SYP to put forward a set of accounts without inconsistencies, this did not assist with the Taylor Inquiry’s role of understanding how the disaster had occurred. 
    
4. Ch Supt Denton also exercised his right not to answer investigators’ questions. In a prepared statement provided to the IOPC at the start of the interview, he accepted “full supervisory responsibility” for the amendment process. However, in this statement he said that “amendments of the recollections were undertaken purely to ensure that they complied with the advice of the legal advisors and the requirements of formal witness statements for legal proceedings”. 
    
5. At the Goldring Inquests, Ch Supt Denton was asked for his views on some of the amendments. He accepted that in a couple of instances, facts had been removed and should not have been but argued that this was the result of errors of judgement and not anything more intentional.
    
6. DCI Foster provided a prepared statement to the IOPC and answered investigators’ questions. He confirmed he was the person mostly responsible for implementing amendments to officers’ accounts but consistently stated that he was acting in line with legal advice. When investigators asked him how that applied to the accounts that SYP reviewed and amended in-house, rather than through Hammond Suddards—a review process he had been central to—DCI Foster stated that he was following the broad principles and direction set by the legal team.

• Read more about Officers’ awareness of the amendment process

1. Very few officers recalled being asked to amend their accounts themselves. Instead, most said they were presented with a typed version of the account and asked to read and sign it.
    
2. The majority of officers did sign the amended accounts, effectively giving their approval to the changes. Some stated they did so in full knowledge of what had been changed and why. 
    
3. Other officers stated that they were aware that their accounts had been reviewed but had signed the amended versions without checking them thoroughly. When shown the amended versions, they were surprised at the extent of the changes.
    
4. A further group stated they were not told about the amendments at all before being asked to sign the typed version of their account.
    
5. One such officer was Police Constable Gary Cammock (PC Cammock). A series of handwritten notes on a copy of the fax from Hammond Suddards show that there was some discussion with PC Cammock about proposed amendments to his account (see figure 9E). 
    
6. The first note was dated 7 June 1989 and stated that PC Cammock had been seen and had agreed to the deletion of some swear words, as suggested by Hammond Suddards. However, the note continued: “he is not inclined to alter his criticism of the briefing.” This referred to comments PC Cammock had made about the main briefing given to all SYP officers on duty at 10am on the day of the disaster. He described the microphone system as “next to useless” and said he and others round him “could hear very little of what was actually said.” He added that this led to officers having to check the operational orders “to see exactly what we were supposed to do.” Hammond Suddards had suggested he review this.
    
7. A second note on the same fax was made by DCI Foster on 8 June. It instructed that the account should be retyped as amended. There is no indication that there was any further discussion with PC Cammock before this.

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Figure 9E: Notes made by SYP officers regarding the amendment of PC Cammock’s account (Source: SYP Archive)

1. PC Cammock told the IOPC that he did not remember being asked to sign an amended version, nor being spoken to by any senior officers regarding his account. When shown a version of the account with changes marked on it, PC Cammock acknowledged he had initialled the deletion of swear words but stated: “I do not think I would have agreed to that paragraph [regarding the briefing] being removed.”
    
2. Some officers who signed amended accounts have since gone on record to say they were pressured into doing so.
    
3. They described different degrees of pressure being placed on them, ranging from being threatened with transfer or dismissal, to one officer being told that if he didn’t agree to the amendments, his account would not be submitted to the Taylor Inquiry. 
    
4. Two of the officers said that after refusing to accept the amendments, they were sent to see DCI Foster. A third believed he had seen a different senior officer, but DCI Foster separately stated he had made the amendments to this third officer’s account. DCI Foster recalled meeting some officers regarding their accounts but denied putting pressure on them.
    
5. A fourth officer said that he was called in to see Ch Insp Beal and that one of the others who had refused to accept the amendments was there at the same time as him. 
    
6. Ch Insp Beal accepted he “may have been tasked to speak with officers about amending statements” but said this would have been on legal advice. In a later statement to the IOPC, he directly denied having met this fourth officer.
    
7. While the evidence is inconclusive in relation to Ch Insp Beal’s alleged interaction with this fourth officer, Ch Insp Beal accepted—during the Goldring Inquests—that he had been involved in the amendment of a specific set of accounts. These were the accounts of four communications officers who had been in the PCB at the ground on the day of the disaster.
    
8. The amendments to all four accounts were proposed by Mr Metcalf in a fax sent to Ch Supt Denton on 19 May 1989. Mr Metcalf noted that the officers had “slightly different perspectives as to exactly what happened in relation to the communications problems.” He suggested that they should “be seen again to go through their recollections of this crucial period.”
    
9. This only happened in one case, of a civilian communication officer. The other three accounts were amended by Ch Insp Beal, without him contacting the officers who had produced them. None were aware that their accounts had been amended; two felt the changes were minor. The last of the group had more substantial amendments made to his account but told the IOPC that the new text actually clarified the situation. 

• Read more about Nature and scale of the amendments

1. The IOPC’s investigation has established that, via the two amendment processes, a total of 327 SYP officers’ accounts were amended. This was 133 more than identified in the HIP Report and amounts to approximately 1 in 4 of all SYP officer accounts relating to the day. 
    
2. Of these amended accounts, 297 were sent to WMP.
    
3. The IOPC analysed all the amendments in depth, including 
    
   • looking at the amendments thematically
   • examining how closely the amendments that SYP made as a result of the first amendment process reflected the advice from Hammond Suddards, which in practice in almost every case meant Mr Metcalf
   • comparing the amendments made in the second review process, conducted wholly by SYP officers, to those made in the first, based on input from Hammond Suddards
      
4. In addition, the IOPC re-examined the accounts that were not amended, to establish if any included the kind of content that was removed from or amended in other accounts. This was to assess the consistency and rigour with which the amendment process was applied.
    
5. The suggestions provided by Mr Metcalf included the following: 

1. The comments received resulted in amendments ranging from changing a single word or phrase (for example, “panic” to “extreme urgency”) to substantial cuts or changes. Some of these were of minimal consequence: for example, in response to the suggestion to end the account at “Mexborough”, three paragraphs were cut. This was the account of a police sergeant who had been on duty: the three paragraphs detailed the officer’s return to his home police station and the response of his colleagues over subsequent days.
    
2. In other instances, potentially significant information was removed. The suggestion that an account could end at “off duty on page 3” resulted in the deletion of the following sentence: “At the time of the incident there seemed to be no communication between the officers directly involved on the ground and officers in the control room and no senior officer could be seen to be in charge of directing officers at the Leppings Lane end.” While it could be argued that the first half of this paragraph was comment or speculation—in that the officer said there seemed to be no communication—the second half described what he saw (or didn’t see).
    
3. In the accounts that were amended in-house, some of the marked changes were extremely similar to those suggested by Hammond Suddards. For example, on one account the phrase “a sound of panic” was changed to “a sound of urgency”—an almost direct repeat of a wording change cited in the table above.
    
4. Of the 327 amended accounts, in 85 cases, the amendments were purely corrections to spelling and grammar or matters of style.
    
5. The stated rationale for the review and amendment process was the removal of opinion and comment. Of the 172 suggestions for amendment made by Mr Metcalf, 16 specifically referred to text in the officer’s account being “comment”—thus inferring it should be removed or amended—and others were described as including “hearsay”, “impressions” or in two instances “personal and graphic” recollections.
    
6. The amendments SYP made based on these comments frequently went beyond the removal of opinion—for example, deleting aspects of officers’ recollections of events both at the 1989 Semi-Final and at previous games. The amendments also went beyond the correction of information, with changes that removed certain details often altering the meaning of a sentence.
    
7. Having established the full extent of the amendments, the IOPC then refined this analysis, looking at the amendments made in relation to six themes, agreed with the CPS as a useful means of analysing them for the purposes of demonstrating to a jury the extent and impact of the amendment process.
    
8. Content that referred to communication issues—such as problems with police radios—was amended in 40 accounts (31 on the basis of suggestions from Hammond Suddards). Typically, the amendments involved changing generic comments (for example, that radios weren’t working) to individual ones (that the officer’s radio wasn’t working). However, the IOPC identified at least 80 accounts where comments about communication issues were not amended.
    
9. Comments about aspects of police planning and tactics, including pre-match briefings, an apparent shortage of officers and a lack of coordination in the rescue effort were amended in 31 accounts, but left unchanged in 13.
    
10. References to the failure of police control outside Leppings Lane were amended in 29 accounts but not amended in 45. A common theme among the amendments related to the decision not to delay the kick-off.
     
11. There were 63 accounts from which criticisms of senior officers and/or police command and control were removed or reworded, typically to remove comments that suggested a lack of leadership or direction. However, the IOPC also identified 49 accounts where criticisms of the senior officers or overall police command and control were not changed.
     
12. References to the police having contingency plans to close the tunnel to the centre pens of the West Terrace in the event of overcrowding, or having previously taken action to do so, were removed from all five accounts in which they appeared. 
     
13. Comments that indicated SYP had any responsibility for monitoring safety in the pens—including any actions to monitor the capacity of the pens at previous matches—were removed from all eight accounts where they appeared.
     
14. By reviewing the amendments in detail, the IOPC has established that there was a high degree of consistency between the amendments suggested by Mr Metcalf and those made by the SYP team. The evidence also indicates that particular care was taken to remove references to SYP being responsible for monitoring safety in the pens or taking steps to control access to the centre pens by closing the tunnel. These were potentially pivotal points; if SYP accepted any such responsibility or acknowledged it had previously taken action to close the tunnel, this could indicate that the force had failed to fulfil these responsibilities on the day of the disaster. As is examined in the next chapter, references to both topics were also removed from the written proof of evidence that SYP submitted to the Taylor Inquiry.
     
15. The amendments to the accounts and proof of evidence were made after these two topics were discussed in detail in meetings between SYP and its legal team—notably at the meeting on 26 April 1989 referred to in paragraphs 9.84–9.90.
     
16. In this meeting, the lawyers and DCC Hayes advocated a position that SYP was not responsible for safety in the pens or controlling access to the tunnel, arguing that no such responsibility was documented anywhere.
     
17. However, Ch Supt Mole stated that there was a known contingency among senior officers to close the tunnel when the pens were full—although he subsequently added that it was only a contingency and may never have been used. This appeared to align with the views expressed by CC Wright, in the meeting on 17 April, when he had commented: “you were well aware there were contingencies to deal with the filled stand, i.e. the shutting off of the tunnel.”
     
18. While this responsibility was not documented in the Operational Order, in a court case a few years previously, SYP had argued that it should be paid by football clubs for policing matches, because they were undertaking special police services beyond maintaining law and order: namely, taking responsibility for safety on the terraces. In evidence to the court, SYP officers had described how they did this. SYP won the case, known as Harris v Sheffield United. In meetings between SYP and its legal team, there were repeated references to the case; on 26 April, Mr Woodward even read from the case transcript at one point.
     
19. It is important to note that in the case, SYP was only seeking payment for policing the normal ‘home’ league and matches of clubs in the South Yorkshire area, not for matches when a stadium was being used as a neutral ground, such as FA Cup semi-finals. This was reflected in the meeting when DCC Hayes noted that the 1989 Semi-Final was not within the contract SYP had with SWFC.
     
20. However, when giving evidence in court, none of the officers who testified stated that the responsibility for safety on the terraces only applied to scheduled home games for clubs in South Yorkshire. Further, none of those present at the meeting on 26 April questioned the relevance of the case, or its applicability to the policing of Hillsborough Stadium on the day of the disaster. 
     
21. Amending accounts to remove references to monitoring safety on the terraces therefore appears a material change to the evidence that SYP officers had given. It meant that SYP presented a more consistent argument to the Taylor Inquiry, but an incomplete one. For example, the amendment to the account of Insp White involved the removal of a 200-word section describing his “practice over the years” to climb the steps of the PCB so that he could monitor the build-up in the pens. The same change removed Insp White’s explanation of some practical considerations around tunnel closure, which included the comment: “Although on rare occasions in the past I have used the gates nearest the concourses to control flow away from the tunnel around to the south pen.” 
     
22. Insp White was recognised by SYP colleagues as one of the officers with the most experience of policing the Leppings Lane end. This description of how he had monitored the pens and closed the tunnel in the past was simply removed from his account, so the information was not available to WMP or the Taylor Inquiry. 

• Read more about The first amendments

1. On 10 May, the first batch of accounts was returned to Ch Supt Denton with suggestions for amendments made by Hammond Suddards. They were sent back as three faxes and included comments that words may be missing or that spelling should be checked or corrected, alongside broader suggestions such as: “We should like him to review the comment on page 10, first paragraph, relating to the apparent lack of organised Police effort”.
    
2. There were a number of requests to check facts. In three cases, it was suggested that the final comment should be removed; in one (the account of Insp White), the fax suggested the removal of a section of several paragraphs that the officer had written under the heading “additional points arising.”
    
3. In total, across the three faxes, Hammond Suddards suggested changes to 28 of the 68 accounts reviewed at this stage. In his first prepared statement to the IOPC, Ch Supt Denton recalled receiving the first faxes and noting that Mr Metcalf was “suggesting fairly significant amendments to a number of the recollections before release, such as the removal of opinion, ambiguity and over-descriptive language.” He stated: “It was immediately apparent that, on Mr. Metcalf’s advice, substantial amendments to many of the recollections would be required before they could be released to WMP.”
    
4. Despite this, the IOPC has found no evidence to indicate that Ch Supt Denton challenged any of these proposed amendments and nor did any member of his team. The ‘suggestions’ were treated as instructions and acted upon.

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Figure 9D: Extract from first fax sent as part of the review process (Source: Home Office)

1. In both his evidence to the Goldring Inquests and his first prepared statement to the IOPC, Ch Supt Denton described a standard process he and his team used in implementing the amendments suggested by Mr Metcalf. The following summary is drawn from Ch Supt Denton’s evidence. 
    
   • Ch Supt Denton and DCI Foster reviewed the faxes sent from Hammond Suddards.
   • DCI Foster would then retrieve copies of the relevant original accounts.
   • Either DCI Foster himself, or another member of the team, determined what wording needed to be changed, annotated the original account accordingly and handed the annotated version to typists to retype.
   • The amended versions were then sent back, via various detective sergeants, to the officers who had originally produced them. These officers were asked to review the amended accounts and sign them; they were not necessarily told what had been changed.
      
2. Over the following days, this process was adopted for all accounts that SYP had gathered by that point. In total, 426 accounts were sent to Hammond Suddards for review: these included the accounts of almost all the officers who had been deployed at the Leppings Lane end, whether inside the stadium or outside the entrance, or in other key roles on the day. The lawyers—predominantly Mr Metcalf—suggested amendments to 172 of these.
    
3. Though only the amended versions were sent to WMP, SYP retained the original accounts and the amended versions. In some cases, it also retained a printed copy of the account marked for amendment, with changes written on by hand before the amended version was typed up.
    
4. While Ch Supt Denton has accepted “full supervisory responsibility” for the amendment process, including sending accounts to Mr Metcalf and receiving his responses, the evidence supports his assertion that he did not personally make any amendments. DCI Foster has confirmed he was at the heart of actually making the amendments but also added that two other officers were “involved in carrying out the amendment process in accordance with the legal advice received.” 
    
5. Having looked into the process in detail, the IOPC found evidence that one of these officers played a predominantly administrative role in the process. However, the other, Detective Inspector Philip Jones (DI Jones), signed or initialled handwritten notes on 106 officers’ accounts. These included notes implementing amendments suggested by Hammond Suddards as well as, in 16 cases, further suggested amendments, apparently from DI Jones himself. 
    
6. In a statement to Operation Resolve in March 2014, DI Jones stated that at some point after the disaster, D Ch Supt Addis gave him a bundle of around 12 accounts on which suggested amendments had been marked up. DI Jones said he was told “to contact the officers, interview them and delete certain parts of their reports.” DI Jones stated to Operation Resolve that he did not know who had suggested the changes but that he was instructed to “have them remove any criticism of senior officers and criticism of the radio communications”. He stated he believed he had been asked to do this because DCI Foster was away.
    
7. When IOPC investigators interviewed him and pointed out there was evidence that he had amended more than 12 accounts, DI Jones accepted that he had been involved in amending more than 12 accounts but stated: “I was acting in accordance with legal advice and under the direction of senior officers.”
    
8. Both DCI Foster and DI Jones have stated that they amended accounts in accordance with legal advice. However, for 94 of the accounts that were amended, there is no record of advice from Hammond Suddards. Instead, the IOPC has established that from around 16 May—the day after the Taylor Inquiry hearings started—SYP reviewed and amended officers’ accounts in-house, without sending them to Hammond Suddards.
    
9. In total, 736 accounts were reviewed by the in-house team of officers: predominantly DCI Foster, DI Jones and one other. The amendments made through this process were similar to those recommended by Hammond Suddards.
    
10. The possibility of SYP reviewing accounts in-house was first discussed on 10 May. According to a file note made by Hammond Suddards, ACC Anderson telephoned the solicitors to discuss the fact that WMP had now asked for accounts from around 600 SYP officers. These were officers that had been on duty at the Semi-Final, but not at the Leppings Lane end.
     
11. Mr Metcalf commented that while they could follow the same process as previously, Hammond Suddards “would be under considerable time difficulties and would not be able to process these prior to the 22nd or even the 29th of May.” In response, ACC Anderson proposed that these officers should be asked to provide a statement that “sticks to factual matters alone”, and that these “would then be vetted by the Police themselves.” 
     
12. The accounts of this new group of officers were reviewed and amended by Ch Supt Denton’s team, rather than Hammond Suddards; the solicitors were only contacted if Ch Supt Denton’s team had specific queries. 
     
13. For a brief period, this process ran concurrently with the vetting of the previously requested accounts, which was being conducted by Hammond Suddards.
     
14. A range of documentary evidence shows that from an early stage, WMP and the Taylor Inquiry team were aware that SYP had adopted a vetting process for officers’ accounts—though the IOPC has not established who informed them or when. The prime concern from WMP appears to have been that this could delay the delivery of accounts to the Taylor Inquiry team.
     
15. On 15 May, the Taylor Inquiry opened and Andrew Collins QC, Counsel to the Inquiry, gave a preliminary statement in which he explained that “At this stage only witnesses who can give factual evidence will be called” and added: “This is not the stage for witnesses to give evidence of their opinions.” However, he added that “this does not of course mean that the Inquiry will ignore the opinions of those who wish to put them forward” and suggested that these could be offered in writing.
     
16. This stance was confirmed in a letter from David Brummell of the Treasury Solicitor’s Department, who was part of the Taylor Inquiry team, to ACC Jones on 7 June. The letter was sent after an SYP officer was asked questions at the Taylor Inquiry relating to his original account, which had been sent to WMP by mistake, rather than the amended version. 
     
17. Mr Brummell dismissed ACC Jones’s concerns about this, commenting: “The main difference between the initial and final versions of the South Yorkshire Police Officers' statements is that any expressions of opinion were (as I understand it, on the advice of Mr. Woodward) removed from the final version.” He added: “As I understand it, Andrew Collins' view is that there is absolutely no reason for excluding such expressions of opinion when they touch on matters relevant to the Public Inquiry and that, in the circumstances, there is no objection in principle to written statements containing such opinions being submitted to the Inquiry.”
     
18. While this reaffirmed that opinions did not need to be removed, WMP had already been alerted to the possibility that some material changes were being made to accounts. On 22 May, an SYP officer telephoned DCI Ross to complain that his statement had been altered.
     
19. DCI Ross informed ACC Jones, who in turn wrote to CC Wright at SYP. The letter began: “I thought I would advise you discreetly that we have had two approaches from separate sources suggesting omissions have been made from officer’s recollections.” 
     
20. The IOPC has found no evidence to suggest that either WMP or SYP sought to stop the amendment process or look into the issue. Instead, it appears to have been the catalyst for SYP to issue an internal message, titled ‘The Hillsborough Inquiry – Update II’, which was specifically addressed to “officers of the South Yorkshire Police submitting evidence to the West Midlands Police”. It referred to the fact that officers’ accounts had been amended and acknowledged that some officers had expressed concerns about this. It explained that the amendments were “necessary” and had been made “to remove conjecture and opinion and to leave only matters of fact.”
     
21. The crucial consequence of the amendment process was that WMP only received the amended accounts, so any further actions it took or analysis it conducted could only have been based on those versions. Its investigation was based on the information SYP chose to give it. Similarly, the Taylor Inquiry team could only call witnesses to give oral evidence based on the amended accounts; there may have been information in the original accounts that would have been relevant to the Inquiry, but this was not available for consideration. 

• Read more about WMP’s request for written recollections

1. On 28 April 1989, Lord Justice Taylor held a preliminary hearing for the Inquiry at Sheffield Town Hall. The hearing set out his expectations for the Inquiry. Lord Justice Taylor stated: “I emphasise that during the first phase of the Inquiry what is required is factual evidence as opposed to mere comment or non-expert opinion.” 
    
2. The following day, ACC Jones, who was leading WMP’s work for the Taylor Inquiry, wrote to CC Wright that he had “been directed by Lord Justice Taylor to invite senior police officers who were involved at Hillsborough on Saturday 15 April 1989 to submit, in writing their recollection of the events prior to and during the match.” He listed six officers from whom recollections were sought. He did not specify that comment or opinion was not required. 
    
3. SYP swiftly conveyed this request to its lawyers. A handwritten file note from Hammond Suddards indicated that Ch Supt Wain phoned the same day and explained the development. After further conversations between DCC Hayes and Mr Metcalf, on 2 May, Mr Metcalf met with some of the senior officers to review their accounts. In a short note of the meeting, Mr Metcalf recorded: “I made various suggestions for alterations to their statements, the principal change being that in respect of ACC Jackson, who had not included any of the details of the planning of the match.”
    
4. In what appears to be a direct consequence, ACC Jackson submitted a ten-page account, plus an appendix. This was shared with WMP, who recorded it as his statement.
    
5. On 7 May, ACC Jones wrote to CC Wright again, advising him that the Taylor Inquiry had now requested written recollections from a large number of SYP officers, to be drafted in line with “the same criteria as for the senior officers before.” The following day, Detective Chief Inspector Malcolm Ross of WMP (DCI Ross) sent Ch Supt Denton a list of 122 SYP officers from whom recollections were required.
    
6. According to a Hammond Suddards attendance note, Ch Supt Wain and Ch Supt Denton jointly telephoned Hammond Suddards and spoke to Miss Norcliffe about WMP’s request. She noted they were “concerned” as some of the accounts they already had from officers on the list “go beyond mere fact.” According to the note, Ms Norcliffe advised them that “as the statements already taken were provided for Legal Advisors, this would not necessarily be a problem, that all the statements would have te [sic] be vetted before release and consents from all Officers would be required.” 
    
7. Having confirmed this with Mr Metcalf, she then telephoned Ch Supt Wain back to advise him that the best course of action would be “for us to read through every single statement requested that we already had, to ok the ones that should be released and to suggest alterations possibly to others.”
    
8. This was therefore the third point at which the legal team suggested that officers’ accounts might need to be amended. Again, there was no recorded response from SYP.
    
9. On 9 May, Ch Supt Denton sent Mr Metcalf a bundle of accounts, with the specific acknowledgement: “You agreed to vet the initial batch of those statements.” The decision to send accounts to Hammond Suddards for vetting was communicated promptly within the SYP teams involved in the collection of evidence. On 10 May, Ch Supt Wain instructed the SYP MIR that “nothing currently in our possession will be released to W/Mids until it has been vetted by our legal representatives.”
    
10. It is important to acknowledge that WMP’s request meant that officer accounts would now be used for a very different purpose: whereas SYP had asked for them to inform its production of a proof of evidence for the Taylor Inquiry, they were now being treated as primary evidence by another police force. 

• Read more about The instructions SYP gave about producing recollections

1. As detailed at paragraph 9.42, in a CID briefing on 16 April, D Supt McKay told the officers present not to make pocket notebook entries about the disaster. The HIP Report highlighted D Supt McKay’s instruction as the point when “SYP began to shape the investigation that followed.” Others, before and since the HIP Report was published, have suggested that this was a deliberate attempt from SYP to control the evidence that officers gave. The IOPC investigated this issue.
    
2. D Supt McKay has stated that “the decision not to make pocket book entries was mine and the subsequent decision taken by the Force stemmed solely from me and this briefing.”
    
3. However, his initial instruction was given only to CID officers. On the main SYP F Division Operational Order for the game, there were fewer than 40 CID officers among the 812 officers on duty on the day, and it is not certain that all of these same CID officers were at the briefing led by D Supt McKay. 
    
4. In a joint statement to Operation Resolve and the IOPC, D Supt McKay recalled that during the meeting with CC Wright on 17 April, he saw ACC Jackson prepare “a telex that was sent out to all stations within the Force area and this highlighted that no delayed entries were to be made in pocket books and notes were to be made.”
    
5. In a statement to Operation Resolve in May 2015, Police Sergeant Philip Whitlam (PS Whitlam) recalled that a “fax” was circulated on 17 April 1989, instructing officers to prepare an aide-memoire. He subsequently sent a copy of this document to Operation Resolve. It is in fact a telex, marked from the Chief Constable for the “Information of Chief Superintendents.” 
    
6. The telex was recorded as being sent at 1.24pm on 17 April, which indicates it was produced after the meeting with CC Wright that morning, in which D Supt McKay made the suggestion to obtain recollections. It therefore seems highly credible that this was the document D Supt McKay was referring to.
    
7. The telex advised that all members of the force who had been involved in any way with “the events at Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday 15th April” would probably be interviewed and required to make a statement. It instructed: “In order that there [sic] recollections are as accurate as possible these officers should be seen by a supervisory officer and asked to prepare a note in the form of an aide-memoire – not a statement – of their recollections of what occurred.” 
    
8. The guidance continued: “This could usefully include not only information about what these officers did but also what they saw, including crowd behaviour.” Subsequently, officers received further instructions about what to include in their recollections.
    
9. The instruction in the telex clearly differentiated between an aide-memoire and a statement. However, it did not mention pocket notebooks. 
    
10. A number of officers have said they received instructions not to make pocket notebook entries. However, they have referred to getting these instructions in many different locations and at different times. For example, some said they were told not to make a pocket notebook entry on Saturday 15 April—so before D Supt McKay’s first instruction. Yet other officers who attended the same debrief meetings did not recall being given any instruction to this effect. 
     
11. Some officers recalled being specifically instructed to write recollections on plain paper but did not remember being told anything about their pocket notebook. Others stated that they were given no instructions whatsoever about their pocket notebook and completed an entry as normal. 
     
12. The IOPC asked SYP and its former officers for their help in recovering pocket notebooks. This was the first time SYP had been directly asked for pocket notebooks related to the disaster. In a search of its archives, SYP found a large number of notebooks that had been stored with no marking or labelling to indicate they were relevant to the Hillsborough disaster.
     
13. A significant number of officers—or their families—also responded and provided the IOPC with notebooks from the relevant time, which they had kept. Some officers who handed pocket notebooks to investigators did this when first interviewed; others looked for notebooks or other relevant documentation at home after being interviewed by the IOPC and contacted investigators when they found relevant material in lofts, cupboards or other spaces.
     
14. In total, 8,407 pocket notebooks were retrieved and reviewed during the IOPC investigation. Of these, 2,338 related to two crucial periods: 
     
    • March – April 1988, which covered the previous year’s FA Cup Semi-Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, including planning and preparation
    • March 1989 – April 1991, which covered the planning and preparation for the 1989 Semi-Final, the day itself, the immediate aftermath and subsequent investigations up to the end of the Popper Inquests
       
15. Across all of these, 359 notebooks included entries related to the day. This is not as many as would be expected if all 1,100+ officers on duty had made pocket notebook entries in line with normal practice and if all pocket notebooks that covered the day had been retrieved. However, it is far more than were previously believed to exist.
     
16. The overwhelming majority of the pocket notebook entries that related to the day itself were factual—simply stating when officers came on duty, where they were deployed and when they came off duty. They provided few details of the events of the day, though some referred to various debriefs that took place. For example, 20 notebooks specifically mentioned a debrief taking place in the North Stand at the stadium. However, there was no relevant information in the notebooks about what these debriefs covered.
     
17. D Supt McKay has provided the explanation that pocket notebooks were simply not a suitable tool for officers to record recollections of such a huge event. However, the HIP Report identified a possible alternative reason. It referred to the fact that in a meeting on 26 April 1989, Mr Metcalf from Hammond Suddards commented that “pocket notebook entries can be called for and must be produced.” This meant that if the Taylor Inquiry asked to see any pocket notebooks, SYP would have had to submit them. 
     
18. However, this comment was made
     
    • nine days after the date on the fax produced by PS Whitlam
    • ten days after D Supt McKay formally instructed CID officers not to make pocket notebook entries
    • eleven days after the disaster—on the evening of which several officers have stated that they were told not to make pocket notebook entries 
       
19. Any instruction not to use pocket notebooks to record evidence therefore appears to have predated this advice from Hammond Suddards.
     
20. While the evidence around pocket notebooks is unclear, the picture is clearer about what instructions officers were given about their accounts. 
     
21. The first instructions were those in the telex on 17 April 1989. The next set of instructions to officers was issued on 26 April, by Ch Supt Wain. He briefed a team of seven detectives to obtain accounts from officers who were deployed in the vicinity of the Leppings Lane end and gave them a document listing five questions that the officers should answer. After basic administrative details, the main two questions were: “What did you see that is in any way relevant to the incident?” and “What did you do?”
     
22. The background to Ch Supt Wain issuing these instructions was that on 24 April he had been given the responsibility for producing SYP’s written response to the Taylor Inquiry. The need for such a response—known as a ‘proof of evidence’—had been identified by Mr Metcalf at the first meeting SYP had with Hammond Suddards after the disaster, on 19 April. At the request of DCC Hayes, Mr Metcalf had then sent written guidance on what this should cover, setting out six broad topics. In the same letter, Mr Metcalf had also advised DCC Hayes that: “In our view, it will be necessary to have statements from as many as possible of the Officers who were deployed at the ground on that day”. He suggested that these statements should cover “when they came on duty, to whom they were responsible, where they were, what they observed and what they did.”
     
23. Notably, he also wrote: “As the statements concerned are not required for the purposes of any criminal investigation, there is no reason for them to be prepared on CJA forms and indeed many can, in our view, be 'self-taken’, in the sense of simply forming a record of the recollections of the Officer concerned on the points raised above.”
     
24. When Ch Supt Wain took on the task of producing the proof of evidence, he asked what statements Hammond Suddards wanted from officers. DCC Hayes initially told him that this was no longer necessary, as WMP would be taking statements. However, after the meeting DCC Hayes followed the matter up with Hammond Suddards. 
     
25. Mr Metcalf was on holiday, so DCC Hayes spoke to a junior solicitor, Belinda Norcliffe, who advised him that the Taylor Inquiry would want statements from all officers who had been on duty in the Leppings Lane area, as well as from all officers of inspector rank or above who had been on duty anywhere. This would be in addition to any official CJA statements taken by WMP.
     
26. Following this conversation, Hammond Suddards researched whether SYP officers could produce “self-taken statements”. Miss Norcliffe called DCC Hayes later that day to advise him that this would be fine. The Hammond Suddards note of this second call also mentioned that DCC Hayes asked whether it was acceptable for four senior officers—Ch Supt Duckenfield, Supt Murray, Supt Greenwood and Supt Murray—all to refer in their accounts to the same timeline of events that SYP had produced by using photos and video footage. 
     
27. According to the note, Miss Norcliffe replied that this was fine because it was SYP footage, and it was not in conflict with the evidence that was likely to come out at the Taylor Inquiry. She added that if Counsel advised otherwise at the meeting on 26 April, then the officers’ accounts could be amended. This was the first point at which the possibility of amending accounts was raised. No evidence has been found to suggest that DCC Hayes questioned or challenged it. 
     
28. The instructions Ch Supt Wain issued on 26 April reflected the guidance from Hammond Suddards to that point. However, at a meeting later that day, William Woodward QC, the barrister appointed to represent SYP at the Taylor Inquiry, suggested that officer accounts could be broader in scope: “You also ought to be aware that the information you give us is privileged so you should encourage anybody giving evidence to put in his feelings, his worries etc.”
     
29. In statements to the IOPC, both DCC Hayes and Mr Metcalf identified this as a significant change.
     
30. Following this meeting, the instructions to officers were revised and further questions were added. Several variations of the revised instructions have been found but the essence is the same: in the versions dated after this meeting, officers were asked to comment on issues such as crowd behaviour and the mood of the supporters, and to include their fears, feelings and observations.
     
31. In addition, on 27 April, DCC Hayes issued a telex, informing all divisions that he had instructed a team of officers, under the command of Ch Supt Wain, to prepare the proof of evidence for the Taylor Inquiry. He asked all officers who had been on duty at the game and had not yet provided an account to produce written accounts. Due to the very short timescales for production of this proof of evidence, he requested the cooperation of all staff in this—noting that, if necessary, officers should be released from normal duties to complete their accounts as soon as possible.
     
32. Towards the end of the meeting on 26 April, DCC Hayes asked Mr Woodward: “The main players in this are doing their own accounts. Is that O.K. or would you rather someone take their statement?” Mr Woodward responded: “It couldn’t be better. They can put all the things in that they want and we will sort them out.”
     
33. According to the meeting notes, Mr Woodward did not elaborate on what he meant by “sort them out”. However, in the context, it would appear to suggest the possibility of revising the accounts the officers submitted in some way, to address any potential issues the legal team foresaw. This then seems to be the second time that the legal team raised the possibility of changing officers’ accounts. Like the first, it went unchallenged by SYP.
     
34. Based on the available evidence, including witness statements taken from several officers involved in the process, the IOPC has built up a broad picture of how SYP collected the accounts and what they did with them.
     
    • Officer accounts were formally received into the MIR and registered on the HOLMES database as reports rather than statements, with an identifying number.
    • The handwritten versions were typed up and again stored on HOLMES.
    • The typed versions were reviewed and marked up for indexing. This is a standard process in an MIR, where the readers mark points in the document that relate to key investigative themes or topics. The indexers then update the document record on HOLMES to show that it contains information relating to these themes. The database can then be searched thematically. 

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Figure 9C: Indexing marks on an officer’s account (Source: SYP Archive)

1. A detective sergeant who was a member of the team under Ch Supt Wain stated to the IOPC that “Ch Supt Wain always read the documents first and then passed them to whoever the matter related to, depending on which area of concern the item related to. He read everything without exception.”
    
2. The detective sergeant also noted that from an early stage, the topics highlighted by the team in officer accounts typically related to “criticisms of senior management, loss of control, lack of communication and lack of leadership.”

• Read more about Meetings regarding the collection of evidence

1. While there is no documentary evidence of the briefing described by Insp Davis, there are detailed notes of several meetings of SYP officers in the days after the disaster.
    
2. At 9am on 16 April, around 20 officers who had a key role in the policing of the match and/or the immediate police response attended a meeting led by CC Wright. 
    
3. CC Wright opened the meeting by setting out his aim: to get a clear understanding of the sequence of events. Building on the discussions he had the previous evening, including a debrief with Ch Supt Duckenfield and ACC Jackson, he stated: “I think I've got a good idea of it now”, but added that he wanted to confirm the details.
    
4. According to the notes, his first question was: “Did anything happen before 2.30pm that anybody sees as significant?” The meeting notes then show a consistent pattern throughout, of CC Wright setting out his understanding of the situation then asking others to confirm it. 
    
5. For example, at one point CC Wright asked: “Have we got any evidence that there was a delay in traffic that resulted in the Liverpool fans' arrival at the ground being as late as it was?” The assumption here was that a majority of Liverpool supporters arrived late; evidence does not support this, as examined in chapter 4, with some supporters in the ground from an early stage and significant numbers around the Leppings Lane entrance by 2.15pm. Ch Supt Nesbit responded to CC Wright’s question to say that by 2.30pm, three major roads near the stadium—Penistone Road, Halifax Road and Langsett Road—”were completely sterile of football traffic.” 
    
6. Although these were not necessarily the routes that Liverpool supporters would have taken, CC Wright concluded: “there is no evidence whatsoever of the delay in transit of the fans. The fans arrived at the ground vicinity early enough to go in the ground but instead went drinking.”
    
7. Some commentators have seen this meeting as a pivotal point in shaping SYP’s response to the disaster. However, on closer examination it seems that several of the issues discussed—and the provisional understanding that was reached—had little impact on SYP’s subsequent evidence gathering. 
    
8. Similarly, the first CID briefing at 12 noon on 16 April ended up having little impact. D Supt McKay instructed his CID colleagues to prepare for “an enquiry the like of which we have never contemplated before.” He listed some key groups of witnesses that they would need to take statements from, including all the officers who had been at the ground. However, he stated clearly that this would not start that day.
    
9. Shortly after the briefing, a HOLMES database was set up for the enquiry and the first action raised on it at 1pm on 16 April. There were 25 actions raised in total on that first day. Most were in line with D Supt McKay’s administrative focus and included:
    
   • identifying officers who were on duty, via a forcewide questionnaire
   • compiling lists of names of stewards and turnstile operators on duty
   • collecting and preserving video evidence
      
10. However, IOPC investigators identified one item that stood out; a policy decision, reportedly made as early as 7.55pm on 15 April, that “All officers statements to be registered as officers reports”. This meant they would be given the HOLMES code R, rather than being coded as statements (S). This was unusual, because a specific decision was taken at this very early stage—before any actions had even been raised to collect evidence—about how to classify the evidence collected from officers.
     
11. During the briefing, D Supt McKay also instructed CID colleagues: “I would say to you all, anyone who was involved yesterday, after this briefing take time to sit down and make some notes. Is there anyone in this briefing who has made a pocket book brief? No one. Do not start making pocket book entries. Yesterday was the most traumatic experience of my life and large chunks of it I cannot remember. I am sure it must be the same for many of you.”
     
12. This has been taken as central evidence for those who have asserted there was a forcewide instruction to officers not to make pocket notebook entries as normal after the disaster. However, as the next section explores, there is conflicting evidence around this. 
     
13. D Supt McKay then attended a meeting of senior officers on 17 April led by CC Wright, which appears to have had more of an influence on SYP’s approach.
     
14. This took place after WMP had been appointed to carry out—in the words of the press statement read out by ACC Anderson at 5pm on 16 April—”the gathering and assessment of evidence” regarding “The planning and the operational decisions of South Yorkshire Police officers” around the disaster. 
     
15. This meeting covered similar ground to the one CC Wright had led the previous day, in terms of looking at the events leading up to the disaster and the police response. However, the tone of this meeting was markedly different. Instead of purely confirming a chronology of events as he had done the day before, at this second meeting CC Wright challenged the senior officers present to explain potential discrepancies and prepare for the kind of questions an independent investigator might ask. For example, he asked: “Why is it with the same crowd, the same factors, what happened this year to change it? [...] what is the unknown factor?” At one point, he commented: “There was a problem and what were we doing to address it – we seemed to be adding to it.”
     
16. Most notably, in terms of some of the evidence subsequently gathered and presented, there were a series of references to the police closing the central tunnel that led to Pens 3 and 4 of the West Terrace once those pens were full.
     
17. The notes show that relatively early in the meeting CC Wright asked those present: “Go back to the control inside the tunnel. Whose responsibility is it there to divert people – anybody?”
     
18. Ch Supt Duckenfield replied: “Inspector White with serials 14 and 15. Specific instructions on the Order at phase 2.” 
     
19. The reference to phase 2 reflects the fact that the SYP F Division Operational Order—the main planning document for the police operation—divided the operation into three broad phases:
    • before kick-off (phase 1)
    • during the match (phase 2)
    • after the match (phase 3)
       
20. Ch Supt Duckenfield’s recollection was accurate: the Operational Order instructed that in phase 2 Serial 14 would “be located in the central tunnel to the Leppings Lane terraces to maintain order as required.” However, this meant the officers would only be employed to divert people away from the tunnel once the match had started. 
     
21. Shortly after Ch Supt Duckenfield’s comment about the duties of Insp White, the meeting notes included the observation: “Top of the tunnel solid with horses – that procedure happened last year.”
     
22. CC Wright then asked: “Was there any element of that control put in the Order?” No response was recorded.
     
23. Later in the meeting, there was a discussion about how SYP had responded when the decision was made to open the exit gates to relieve the crush outside. Summing up the discussion, CC Wright observed: “the control of movement of people once they were going through gate C, there was no action taken on that. You were well aware there were contingencies to deal with the filled stand, i.e. the shutting off of the tunnel.”
     
24. This comment demonstrates CC Wright’s awareness of both a key failing in the police response on the day—that they did not control the crowd coming through Gate C—and of the fact that SYP had at least one established contingency that could have been used. Further, he clearly stated that at least some of the officers present at this meeting would have been “well aware” of such contingencies. There was no direct response or acknowledgement of this recorded in the meeting notes, but no one contradicted him or suggested such contingencies were not available to SYP on the day.
     
25. The last section of the meeting was dedicated specifically to the actions that SYP should take next. CC Wright asked how SYP should proceed. D Supt McKay took the lead in responding and proposed that officers who had been at the game should set down their recollections. CC Wright confirmed this action: “Very good point – all officers at the game to make records of their recollections.”
     
26. CC Wright concluded the meeting by stating: “The judicial review which is going to be announced today is going to review the evidence that is gathered and if we leave it to West Midlands to provide the evidence we might not get the broad scope of evidence flowing in. We have to be the authors of most of the information fed in. We have to be active and find the areas where the evidence can be found.” These concluding remarks about SYP being “authors” have been viewed by some commentators as an indication of an intent to control the evidence given to WMP.

• Read more about SYP’s initial actions to investigate and preserve evidence

1. Within 20 minutes of the match being abandoned, the senior SYP detective on duty at the stadium, D Supt McKay, telephoned the head of the CID, D Ch Supt Addis, to alert him to the situation. D Supt McKay stated that he agreed with D Ch Supt Addis that no police enquiries could commence that evening, and the priority was identifying those who had died in the disaster.
    
2. However, after the crowd had left the stadium, SYP Scenes of Crime photographers took pictures of litter at the Leppings Lane end of the stadium. These included pictures of the turnstile area and the contents of bins outside the stadium. Time stamps on the photos indicate that they were taken shortly before 6pm on the day of the disaster.
    
3. The most plausible explanation for this action was that SYP wanted to gather evidence of alcohol consumption among Liverpool supporters. However, the photos were of little or no evidential value for this purpose. The litter in the photographs included some empty beer cans, but a similar quantity of empty soft drink cans and other rubbish, so did not support the allegations about alcohol consumption.

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Figure 9A: Image of litter outside Hillsborough Stadium, 17.58 on 15 April 1989 (Source: SYP)

1. SYP secured no comparative evidence of litter from bins at the Nottingham Forest end, or from other games, to help assess whether there was an unusually high quantity of litter at the Leppings Lane end, or an unusually high proportion of alcohol containers within that litter.
    
2. The IOPC took statements from the photographer who had taken the pictures. He said that on the day he had been instructed on what to photograph by SYP officers. However, his accounts of who specifically had instructed him varied, and the IOPC has not been able to establish a source of the instruction.
    
3. In the first few days after the disaster, there were two other instances of SYP appearing to seek evidence about alcohol consumption.
    
4. At 5.17pm on 17 April, an action was raised on SYP’s HOLMES account to “Locate and identify all public houses open and used by fans during morning up to 3pm on date of incident”. 
    
5. On 21 April, a report was logged on the SYP HOLMES database, which documented that SYP had telephoned pubs near the stadium to establish how many Liverpool supporters had visited, at what times and whether there was any trouble. The report recorded that none of the pubs contacted had experienced any trouble with Liverpool supporters. There was nothing in the report showing who had conducted the enquiries.
    
6. On 17 and 18 April, members of the SYP Traffic Division recorded video footage and took photos on two main routes to Sheffield from the west: the A628 Woodhead Pass and A57 Snake Pass. These were roads that some Liverpool supporters had used on the way to the game.
    
7. The IOPC examined three separate videos taken on these trips by the Traffic Division officers. Each shows officers retrieving empty beer cans and wine and spirit bottles from the roadside and then stating on camera that they had been discarded by Liverpool supporters. 

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Figure 9B: Still image taken from SYP video, 17 April 1989, filmed on roads to Sheffield (Source: SYP)

1. It is not clear how this could be said with any certainty; there was no footage to show Liverpool supporters discarding litter. Further, there was no comparative evidence of how much litter had been present before the Semi-Final. 
    
2. Two officers in the Traffic Division produced written accounts of this work on 12 May 1989. Both officers have given statements to the IOPC. One stated that he was instructed to take the footage in a briefing from an inspector on 17 April 1989. He was aware that there were rumours among officers that a large number of supporters had been drunk, and he felt then (and still does) that collecting the cans and video evidence of the litter was a reasonable line of enquiry. He stated he was surprised by the quantity of empty cans they found but acknowledged he had no idea whether this was usual for supporters travelling to a match.
    
3. The other officer recalled that they were both keen to get involved in the investigation into the disaster and the video evidence was collected because of a “general consensus at the time that drunken Liverpool fans had turned up in Sheffield and caused the disaster”. He was not certain whose idea it was to collect the video evidence but suggested to IOPC investigators that it may have come from him and his fellow PC; however, he added that he believed their inspector would have agreed to it. He acknowledged that they did not propose a similar process of collecting video evidence on the routes that the Nottingham Forest supporters would have taken; he also had no idea whether this was a normal level of litter for a major game.
    
4. The IOPC took a statement from the inspector. He could not recall asking his two officers to do this, nor could he recall the rationale for it or even seeing the output.
    
5. Supt Brougham was head of the Traffic Division. He did not recall any instruction being given to film the route and on being shown the footage by IOPC investigators, described it as “a load of rubbish”, adding: “it looks like a set up.” He also stated: “I think it would have been unlikely that the Constables would have filmed the route off their own back.”
    
6. The IOPC has found an action registered on the SYP HOLMES database in response to a message from the owner of a snack bar located in a lay-by on the A628 Woodhead Pass, who wished “to make a statement re the behaviour of the fans.” 
    
7. Detective Sergeant Mick Oughton (DS Oughton) was instructed to speak to the snack bar owner. It was recorded that the snack bar owner had told the officers about “fans leaving beer cans etc in layby 20 miles from SWFC.” However, it does not appear that the officers took a statement from him.
    
8. When IOPC investigators took a statement from DS Oughton, they asked him about this action. He remembered the task but couldn’t remember any conversation with the snack bar owner. 
    
9. This action is striking because it appears so similar to the accounts of Inspector Clive Davis of SYP (Insp Davis), who told the IOPC, the Goldring Inquests and the media that he attended a briefing on 17 April 1989, led by Chief Superintendent Terry Wain (Ch Supt Wain). According to Insp Davis, Ch Supt Wain had opened the meeting by telling the officers present—mostly from CID—that “we are going to put the blame for this disaster where it belongs on the drunken, ticketless Liverpool fans.” Insp Davis said Ch Supt Wain then specifically mentioned that officers were “going to drive down the M62 motorway and we are going to photograph the beer cans which were piled up by the M62.”
    
10. The IOPC investigated this and found no documentary evidence of any such meeting. No other officer has said they were there or in any way corroborated Insp Davis’s account of this meeting. Insp Davis named three people as being present. One was on leave that day; the others were Ch Supt Wain and Ch Insp Bettison. 
     
11. Ch Insp Bettison has strongly rejected Insp Davis’s account and stated he began working as part of Ch Supt Wain’s team on 19 April. 
     
12. Ch Supt Wain himself told IOPC investigators, and the Goldring Inquests, that he was not involved in any way in the SYP response until 24 April 1989. The IOPC has not found any documentary evidence to suggest he started any earlier than that date.

• Read more about 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.

• Read more about Content and versions of the video

1. During its investigation, the IOPC has obtained three videos which may have been the ones shown to MPs. 
    
   • In September 2012, staff from the Chief Constable’s office at West Yorkshire Police (WYP) sent the IOPC a video. The Chief Constable of WYP at the time was (former) Ch Insp Bettison. Having learned that the HIP Report had mentioned that he had shown a video to Parliament, he contacted the IOPC and said he would supply a copy of it. This video lasts for 25 minutes and includes a voice-over which is believed to be by Ch Insp Bettison.
   • In October 2013, an SYP employee at Moss Way Police Station in Sheffield found a video and a set of slides in an envelope addressed to Ch Insp Bettison. SYP alerted the IOPC, and the video was handed over to IOPC investigators a couple of days later. This video turned out to be an identical copy of the first video obtained.
   • The third video was handed to the IOPC by Ch Insp Bettison during an interview under caution on 11 March 2014. It was in a U-Matic format (a video cassette format used mostly by professional studios and broadcasters in the 1970s and 1980s). This video lasts for 31 minutes and includes a voice-over with a West Midlands accent. A former WMP officer, who worked in the WMP AV unit in 1989, has stated to the IOPC that some of the voice-over was his.
      
2. The two different versions of the video have been analysed in detail by the IOPC. The material covered by them both was broadly similar, starting with an overview of football-related disasters resulting in large numbers of deaths and showing some footage of football hooliganism. Both then provided a description of Hillsborough Stadium at the time, highlighting that some of the features of the ground, such as perimeter fences at the front of terraces, were introduced to prevent hooliganism. Both videos then progressed to footage from the day of the disaster, initially outside Leppings Lane, then showing the terraces, then showing the disaster and elements of the rescue effort, including scenes from the temporary mortuary.
    
3. While there were numerous similarities between the two videos, there were also some important differences. The video with a West Midlands accent was seven minutes longer. It included an extended section of continuous footage from the 1988 Semi-Final, as well as longer CCTV extracts.
    
4. In the video with a voice-over from Ch Insp Bettison, the commentary was far more detailed and included:
    
   • a reference to supporters forcing open a gate at around 2.40pm on the day of the disaster
   • several points of direct comparison of the crowd, and how well the police managed it, in 1988 compared to 1989
   • a brief reference to the Heysel Stadium disaster, which occurred in 1985
      
5. The voice-over by Ch Insp Bettison also emphasised the direct link between hooliganism and the installation of perimeter fences at all major stadia; later, when discussing the rescue effort, this voice-over referred to “narrow perimeter fence gates.” It could be argued that this is a veiled criticism of the stadium design, which was the responsibility of SWFC and, to a lesser extent, its contracted engineers, Eastwood & Partners.
    
6. In his evidence to the Goldring Inquests, Ch Insp Bettison stated that he had used three sources of material to compile the video: 
    
   • material that had been shown to the Taylor Inquiry
   • some SYP footage from the 1988 Semi-Final
   • a police training video called ‘Planning for Disaster’
      
7. The IOPC has identified that this latter source was a 1986 Metropolitan Police video called ‘Plan for Disaster’ and has obtained a copy of it. The material about previous incidents at football grounds, including footage showing hooliganism and the reference to Heysel, is taken from ‘Plan for Disaster’. This footage appears at the start of both videos; in the longer version of the video, the Metropolitan Police voice-over is also retained.
    
8. There is no suggestion that at any time either version of the video was intended to be shown to the public.
    
9. The IOPC has not been able to confirm from any of those present which of the videos was shown to MPs, or which was shown at the meeting with Mr Shersby on 3 October 1989.
    
10. In the interview under caution on 11 March 2014, Ch Insp Bettison gave a prepared statement, in which he said the third video was the one he presented at the meeting with Mr Shersby and to MPs. In a later prepared statement to the IOPC, he further explained: “I can be sure of that because I recall that Mr. Shersby had to rent a U-Matic player from an AV company in Uxbridge because my tape had been recorded on such an unusual format.”
     
11. He also added in this later statement: “My own commentary was added to a later, edited, version of the original tape. This was requested of me by SYP Training School.”
     
12. Ch Insp Bettison was asked about the videos when giving evidence to the Goldring Inquests. There, he stated that he had shown the same version of the video at the meeting with Mr Shersby and in Parliament, and that “the video had no narration”. He reiterated under cross-examination that “there was no commentary from me at all”, then again said, more generally “there was no commentary.” 
     
13. When asked by the barrister representing the Police Federation if that meant the video was silent, Ch Insp Bettison replied: “Please forgive me. There were elements of the video material that had been given to Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry that had a West Midlands Police officer's narrative over it. The first iteration of the video that was shown both to the Police Federation and to Members of Parliament had no additional commentary from me.” 
     
14. Asked when he put his own commentary on, Ch Insp Bettison stated it was in late 1989 or early 1990, to create a training video for SYP match commanders, in line with a recommendation made by Lord Justice Taylor.
     
15. While neither the Taylor Interim Report nor the Taylor Final Report specifically recommends the production of a training video, both emphasised the need for police training. A video could logically and reasonably have been part of SYP’s approach to this.