To examine the appointment process, IOPC investigators reviewed all available documentation about it—including a comprehensive 1999 report from the Clerk of the MPA, who was at the heart of the appointment process. They then took statements from surviving members of the Appointments Committee, including one of the two who had stepped down, as well as others involved in the selection process or the fallout from it. These included two members of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), which routinely provided an assessment of each candidate for chief officer roles to the selection panels. Investigators also received several prepared statements from Norman Bettison.
The evidence indicates that, during the initial application process, there was no point at which he was asked about his involvement in SYP’s response to the disaster, and so there was no point during this phase at which he should have declared his involvement.
On the application form, candidates were asked to demonstrate their suitability for the role of Chief Constable with reference to actions in senior roles. These were understood to be roles of superintendent or above. Norman Bettison was a chief inspector at the time of the disaster and did not refer to any of the work he did in relation to the disaster in his responses on the form. The first role he mentioned was as superintendent in the SYP Traffic Division—a role he began in October 1989. There was no specific question asking for details of experience in more junior roles.
When the Appointments Committee met to review the applications, they were provided with a brief written assessment from HMIC of each candidate. The assessment of Norman Bettison mentioned that when he was at SYP, he had been a “member of a small enquiry team reporting to the Chief Constable on the Hillsborough incident”. The HMIC assessor who wrote this, Dan Crompton, told the IOPC that he had included it because he “was conscious that anything relating to Hillsborough was an extremely sensitive issue in Merseyside.” Some members of the Appointments Committee chose not to read the HMIC assessment, and two others stated they did not recall seeing it.
Seven candidates, including Norman Bettison, were invited for a two-day interview process. This included an evening gathering, where members of the Appointments Committee could meet the candidates in an informal setting. Though the interviews were structured to ask similar questions to each candidate, this gathering would have provided an opportunity for members of the Appointments Committee to ask about his association with the disaster. No such questions were asked.
At the end of the interview process, Norman Bettison was announced as the unanimous choice of the Appointments Committee.
The IOPC’s terms of reference included investigating: The following specific complaints/conduct matters relating solely to Sir Norman Bettison and not already covered elsewhere in the terms of reference:
a) whether Sir Norman Bettison was deliberately dishonest in relation to his involvement in the Hillsborough investigation during the application and appointment process for the post of Chief Constable of Merseyside Police in 1998 b) the nature and extent of various statements made by Sir Norman Bettison to the press and any other actions after publication of the Hillsborough Independent Panel Report, based on allegations that this was part of a continued effort to deflect blame away from SYP towards others, particularly Liverpool supporters
What was found?
• During the initial application process, there was no point at which Norman Bettison was asked about his involvement in SYP’s response to the disaster. This meant there was no point during this phase when he should have declared this involvement.
• Most of the Appointments Committee who decided to appoint Norman Bettison as Chief Constable of Merseyside Police have confirmed they were aware he had been involved in SYP’s response to the disaster. Two stated that when they appointed him, they were not aware of his involvement.
• After protests against the appointment, Norman Bettison issued a statement in which he confirmed he had been involved in SYP’s response to the disaster. However, the description he gave of his role was not accurate and omitted some significant activities he performed.
• There were also inaccuracies in the description he gave to the Merseyside Police Authority (MPA) of his involvement in the disaster. Together, these give the impression that he deliberately downplayed the extent of his involvement in SYP’s response.
• Similar criticisms can be made of the public statements he gave after the HIP Report was published.
• The evidence is inconclusive about whether Norman Bettison told his MBA classmates that SYP intended to blame supporters for the disaster. Only two of the 14 interviewed by the IOPC recall him saying this.
Significant new evidence
The major new evidence in relation to this part of the investigation came in the form of statements from MPA members and various witnesses, plus the prepared statements of Norman Bettison. The IOPC also reviewed other applications he made for senior roles around this time.
At the time of the disaster, Norman Bettison was a chief inspector at SYP. He was at the stadium as a spectator on the day of the disaster and responded to the emerging situation by helping organise an information point for those trying to find a missing friend or family member. As has been detailed throughout this report, he was then involved in various aspects of SYP’s response to the disaster, including the production of the proof of evidence, and compiling a video, which he presented to MPs.
By October 1989, he had been promoted to superintendent. In 1992, he successfully applied to become an assistant chief constable at West Yorkshire Police (WYP). In 1998, he then applied to become Chief Constable of Merseyside Police: the force which serves the Liverpool area.
Following an application process which was based on best practice guidelines at the time, he was appointed Chief Constable of Merseyside Police in October 1998. However, his appointment was met with protests by family members of those who had died, due to his association with the disaster. It was suggested that he had deliberately avoided telling the Appointments Committee of the MPA (which was responsible for appointing the Chief Constable) about his involvement in SYP’s response to the disaster. Having discovered the extent of Norman Bettison’s role in SYP’s response, two members of the Appointments Committee stepped down in protest at his appointment.
The IOPC investigated the appointment of Norman Bettison as Chief Constable of Merseyside and in particular the allegation that he in some way lied to or misled the Appointments Committee during the application process. It also looked at a separate allegation against him related to the contents of two public statements he made in 2012, following the publication of the HIP Report. The core of this second allegation was that in those statements, he did not fully or accurately describe his role in SYP’s response to the disaster.
Given the sensitivity of the subject and the sense of intrusion on individual lives, the IOPC provided the affected families with a comprehensive presentation of the evidence found in relation to alleged surveillance early in its investigation.
While the IOPC was unable to reach a finding on the complaints related purely to telephone surveillance, five of the complaints around surveillance were upheld.
The IOPC also investigated each of the incidents where families suggested that police contact occurred as a result of the police listening to their telephone conversations. Investigators were able to provide family members with a plausible alternative explanation for what had occurred. These explanations were welcomed by the families, even where it could not be confirmed that this was what had happened. The IOPC identified that in some cases the manner of the police when they then contacted the families was not appropriate. In particular, in one incident where WMP officers were sent to retrieve a document that should not have been in the public domain, the evidence indicates the officers behaved in an unnecessarily intimidating way towards the family. This complaint was upheld.
The allegations of individuals being followed were in many cases too vague in terms of dates and locations to enable further investigation. However, the IOPC did look in detail into one specific allegation, where a family member was conspicuously followed by police officers for almost a week—and on at least one occasion, spoke to the officers directly. This complaint was upheld.
To investigate the burglaries, the IOPC instructed Merseyside Police to retrieve all material relating to them, from initial incident logs through to subsequent investigations, and to provide names and ranks of all officers who attended. The initial response was disappointingly slow, and the IOPC had to escalate the issue to senior officers, including the Head of Professional Standards at Merseyside Police, before receiving the material. Having looked into the matter, the Head of Professional Standards apologised to the IOPC for the poor initial response from the force and ensured more comprehensive information was provided.
This information indicated poor practice in the crime recording process, with key information relating to the crimes being recorded either inadequately or inaccurately.
Two separate burglaries—the first burglary at the Hillsborough Centre and the first burglary at the HJC shop—were recorded as one incident.
No information at all—not even a crime reference number—was found in relation to either of the break-ins at the home of the individual involved in the campaign and support group.
Despite this, the information that was available did not support the allegation that the police were in any way involved in the burglaries. Some of the recollections that only material related to the disaster was stolen proved incorrect and in one case, witness accounts described those involved in the incident as youths, indicating they could not have been police officers. This does not, however, prove the campaigner or the campaign and support groups were not under police surveillance.
The IOPC sought to examine potential explanations for the noises that people heard on their telephone lines, other than that they were a result of police surveillance. Investigators contacted three telephone engineers who had experience of supporting official surveillance during the 1990s and 2000s. They all indicated that if there had been authorised surveillance of telephone lines, the users would not have heard anything. This was because of the way such surveillance was conducted. They also suggested that in this period, crossed lines—that is, hearing a different conversation—sometimes occurred as a result of either a fault or water ingress on the line.
The IOPC also appointed an expert witness on surveillance, who had been part of the surveillance team at the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad. He was asked to comment on various matters, including the noises that complainants had heard on their telephone lines. He said that, as far as he was aware, authorised interception of communications took place in a sterile environment where “it would be impossible to hear intruding voices.” He also observed that if voices could be overheard during an interception operation, it “would completely jeopardise and compromise the process.” He could not offer an explanation for the clicking noises heard.
Together, these responses indicated that the noises were unlikely to be a result of official police surveillance.
To investigate the allegations, the IOPC began by taking statements from family members and others about what they had experienced and why they thought this could be a result of police surveillance. The issues most commonly cited related to problems with telephone lines.
Twenty-one of the complainants who wrote to the IOPC reported hearing noises, such as clicks on the line, when they made or received telephone calls at home. Some also said they often experienced a delay at the start of a call. All suspected these noises and interruptions were the result of telephone interception carried out by, or at the instruction of, the police.
In some cases, the noises continued even after the individuals had moved home or changed telephone provider.
One complainant said that, in one property he lived in, he only heard these noises when speaking to another individual who wrote to the IOPC.
One woman only heard noises when she called her mother, who was a prominent member of one of the campaign and support groups related to the disaster. Her concern was not about her own telephone line being intercepted, but rather her mother’s.
Four people referred to a specific crossed-line incident, which meant two individuals overheard, during a call between them, the separate telephone conversation of a third complainant. All already knew each other as a consequence of the disaster.
Eight further individuals referred to hearing other voices on the line. Three of these (including two who referred to calls made from a public phone box near SYP HQ) specifically mentioned hearing sounds that were like police radio or other police conversations.
In some cases, family members had some form of contact with the police, which they believed occurred as a result of the police hearing something they had said in a phone conversation.
Understandably, those reporting the issues were often not able to state which police force, or forces, could have been involved. There was also no information on surveillance in the archives, or in the material disclosed to the HIP.
Five complaints referred to burglaries in Merseyside, as well as the interception of communications. Two of these incidents were at the Hillsborough Centre—set up to provide support to families and supporters who had been at the match—and two at the Hillsborough Justice Campaign (HJC) shop. A further two incidents, covered by the same complaint, took place at the home of a member of the HJC. Because in each case material that was stolen or damaged involved information relating to the disaster and the work of campaign and/or support groups, the complainants raised the possibility that the police were involved in the burglaries. This was on the basis that they felt only the police would have found the information of value.
The IOPC secured the support of the Home Secretary to ask all police forces to search for any records of surveillance related to family members of those who died, or to members of campaign and support groups related to the disaster, and to provide those records to the IOPC. No records were found. Again with the support of the Home Secretary, the IOPC then asked forces for all information they held related to the disaster, as a means of checking that nothing had been overlooked. Still no relevant information was provided.
While this could indicate that there had been no authorised police surveillance of the individuals, it could also mean that the records had been (correctly) destroyed after they had been held for the permitted period.
In relation to telephone surveillance, the legal framework meant that, at the time the IOPC made this request, records should have existed of every lawful police interception of telephone communications since 2000, and of every time a police force applied to the Home Secretary to intercept telephone communications. However, the longstanding government policy is that the Home Secretary will neither confirm nor deny whether any individual is the subject of telephone interception.
Instead, families were directed to contact the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), an independent public body which oversees complaints about the use of intrusive powers such as phone-tapping by intelligence services, law enforcement agencies and public authorities. It has the authority to view the details held by the Home Office of all authorisations granted to intercept telephone communications and to award damages to complainants.
Police surveillance powers in the UK are subject to a range of regulations. These regulations evolved over the period covered by the allegations, reflecting changes in lifestyle and technology. They have changed further since the start of the IOPC investigation.
However, there are some key principles that have remained at the core of the regulatory environment throughout. These include that all police surveillance has to be authorised, typically by senior officers, and that intercepting telephone calls is a particularly intrusive form of surveillance, which can only be authorised in strict circumstances by the Home Secretary.
The IOPC’s terms of reference included investigating:
Complaints and recordable conduct matters about police surveillance and covert activity linked to the Hillsborough disaster involving family members of those who died, survivors and other complainants linked to the disaster.
What was found?
• By 2014, no police force had any records of surveillance of the families of those who died in the disaster. However, one explanation for this could be that records had been (correctly) destroyed after they had been held for the maximum permitted period.
• In line with longstanding policy, the Home Secretary would not confirm or deny whether anyone had been subject to telephone interception (‘phone tapping’) by the police. However, families were directed to the public body that could answer this question.
• In the view of various expert witnesses, the descriptions of intrusive noises during telephone conversations did not indicate that families were subject to lawful surveillance by the police. They all indicated that the subjects of police telephone interception would not hear noises on the line as a result.
• The IOPC was able to provide some families with detailed explanations of incidents involving police intrusion on their everyday lives. Though this explained why the police were involved, it did not justify the manner of police interaction, particularly in one case where officers from WMP were intimidating.
• In one case, an individual appears to have been under overt surveillance by the police for over a week, without good reason. It has not been possible to investigate all instances where people complained they were followed by the police.
• Some of the incidents cited as indicating police surveillance were not properly recorded or handled by Merseyside Police at the time. This appears to have been the result of errors or poor practice, rather than an attempt to conceal police involvement in the incidents.
Significant new evidence
Almost of all the evidence around alleged surveillance was new, as these issues had not previously been looked at. The IOPC took statements from a large number of witnesses describing their experiences and why they suspected these to have been a result of police surveillance. In addition, the IOPC contacted expert witnesses in telephone interception, from both the policing perspective and the telecommunications industry. Further, the IOPC used its powers to obtain documents from Merseyside Police, after its initial response to requests for information had been insufficient.
Over the years since the Hillsborough disaster, there have been repeated allegations that family members of those who died, and members of campaign and support groups related to the disaster, were placed under surveillance by the police. The alleged surveillance ranged from telephone interception (that is, that their phone lines were ‘tapped’ so that others could hear their conversations), to individuals reporting being followed. There were also suggestions that:
there may have been some form of police involvement in break-ins at homes or Hillsborough-related locations, whether to intimidate campaigners or obtain material related to the disaster and subsequent campaigns
the police intruded in different ways on the everyday life of bereaved families
After the IOPC investigation into the aftermath of the disaster was first announced, the issue of alleged surveillance was raised in Parliament, with MPs representing constituencies where many families lived asking for an investigation into the matter. The then Home Secretary, Theresa May, agreed that it should be considered by the IOPC, and it was added to the terms of reference.
The IOPC received 27 complaints relating to alleged police surveillance and/or covert activity, from 25 complainants with connections to the Hillsborough disaster. All 25 alleged that some of their or their families’ telephone conversations had been intercepted by, or at the instruction of, the police.
In 16 of the complaints, there was also a further allegation of surveillance or covert activity, such as an individual being followed by police officers, or of police intrusion in their family life.
The complaints covered a long timeframe. The earliest referred to incidents around the time of the Taylor Inquiry (1989–90) and the most recent involved noises heard on telephone lines during 2015. They also referred to the alleged actions of officers from a number of forces, including Merseyside Police, SYP, WMP and the Metropolitan Police. In several cases, the complainant was not able to identify any particular officer or force involved.
While SYP’s actions appear to have been in line with what might be expected, the IOPC has identified a series of concerns about the thoroughness of the WMP investigation and the records WMP made relating to it.
This investigation was led by Detective Chief Inspector Kevin Tope (DCI Tope), who began by taking signed statements from the four key witnesses, followed by further statements from the technical consultant and police officer who worked in the SWFC control room.
On 13 May 1989, DCI Tope submitted a report in which he wrote that, despite making “full enquiries” at the ground including a “thorough search”, the tapes had not been found. However, there is no documentary evidence of what searches took place.
Given there were no signs of forced entry, this would tend to suggest that the room had either been left unlocked by the technical consultant or the head of security, or that it had been unlocked by someone else. WMP did not establish who had access to keys. There are indications in the existing accounts that there was at least one more set of keys, kept in Mr Mackrell’s office, but the IOPC has not been able to confirm this, nor who would have had access to them. There is nothing to suggest that WMP attempted to interview Mr Mackrell about this or any other aspect of the tapes’ disappearance.
No WMP officer contacted DS Oughton to ask him for further details of his initial steps.
Finally, the notes from DCI Tope on the action mentioned that “Supporters, relatives, press etc had virtually unrestricted access to stadium on 15.4.89 due to disaster.” This comment appears to imply that any of those—or indeed, any other member of the public—could have removed the tapes. However, it overlooks some key points:
according to several witnesses the room was locked
there is no obvious reason for any of these individuals to have known that the facility even existed
SYP officers and SWFC staff also had unrestricted access to the stadium
DCI Tope died in 1992. The IOPC has not found evidence of any occasion where he was asked about the investigation he conducted into the missing tapes.
While there are reasons to question the rigour of the investigation he conducted, there was insufficient evidence available 30 years on to ascertain exactly what steps he did take. This meant that the IOPC could not answer whether his investigation reached the standards that a competent detective could reasonably be expected to have achieved.
There is also some indication of disquiet or frustration among SYP officers about the way WMP investigated the disappearance of the tapes.
On 10 May 1989, D Ch Supt Addis sent ACC Anderson a report around the disappearance of the tapes. In it, he noted that the SYP officer who worked in the SWFC control room had been interviewed three times by WMP, “who, it appears, seems somewhat dissatisfied with our officers explanations.” In a statement to Operation Resolve, he reiterated his concerns about this and commented that it appeared the SYP officer “was their only suspect.”
In relation to the bigger picture, the IOPC also found no evidence to suggest SYP was involved in any cover-up, or indeed in the disappearance of the tapes in any way.
On Monday 17 April, DS Oughton of SYP was instructed to obtain all video footage taken by SWFC on the day of the disaster, as part of SYP’s work to preserve evidence. By this stage, SYP had already secured its own video tapes from the PCB for review. These were passed to WMP once it took over the investigation. This was all fully documented.
DS Oughton phoned SWFC and was told by a solicitor working for the club that all the tapes were in a locked safe at the ground, but that SWFC was not yet willing to release them. Later that same day, the solicitor phoned DS Oughton back and told him two of the tapes were missing.
On 18 April, DS Oughton visited the ground where he met the technical consultant, who showed him the recording system and described what had happened. DS Oughton made a report of this visit. He noted that the technical consultant said he had ejected the tapes, locked the room and set the alarm, then returned the following morning at 9am and found the tapes missing.
In his report, DS Oughton commented that there were no signs of forced entry to the room or to the cupboard where the video recorders were kept.
SYP did not conduct any further enquiries. Shortly after this, SYP handed over responsibility for all investigative actions related to the disaster to WMP and did not investigate the disappearance of the tapes further.
However, the evidence of this initial period indicates that SYP had acted promptly and professionally in relation to the issue. Further, the fact that SYP had already prepared its own videos for investigation—which were potentially far more damaging for SYP than SWFC’s footage—indicates it is unlikely that SYP would then seek to prevent SWFC’s tapes being made available.
