Duckenfield faces fresh trial over Hillsborough manslaughter charges

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/07/duckenfield-fresh-trial-over-hillsborough-manslaughter-charges

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The former South Yorkshire police chief superintendent who was in command of the 1989 FA Cup semi-final at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough football ground when 96 people were killed in a crush, will on Monday begin his retrial on the criminal charge of manslaughter.

The prosecution of David Duckenfield, 75, will be heard at Preston crown court, presided over by Judge Sir Peter Openshaw, who heard the previous trial that concluded in April.When the match took place on 15 April 1989 between Liverpool, then managed by Kenny Dalglish, and Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest, Duckenfield was 44, newly promoted from the rank of superintendent to be in charge of the South Yorkshire police crowd safety operation.

The lethal crush took place in the central “pens”, three and four, of Hillsborough’s Leppings Lane terrace, which with the north-west corner terracing was allocated for all 10,100 people with tickets to stand and support Liverpool.

Altogether 54,000 people attended the semi-final, 24,000 of them allocated tickets designated for Liverpool supporters on the terraces, which were divided into pens by metal fences, and in the seats of the north and west stands. The 96 people killed by the crush ranged in age from the youngest, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, who was 10, to the oldest, Gerard Baron, who was 67. Seven of those killed were women or girls, the other 89 were men and boys; in total 37 of the people who died were teenagers.

Duckenfield was charged in June 2017 following the conclusion of a new inquest into the disaster and a police investigation, Operation Resolve, which was established after the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, published in September 2012.

He is being prosecuted for gross negligence manslaughter in relation to 95 of the people killed, because no charge has been brought in relation to the death of Tony Bland, the 96th person to die. Bland was 18 when he went to support Liverpool at the match and was among those trapped in the crush. He suffered catastrophic brain damage due to critical loss of oxygen.

He was transferred to Airedale General hospital near his home in Keighley, west Yorkshire, where he remained unconscious and was fed and maintained on life support for almost four years. The life support was withdrawn in March 1993, following a House of Lords court judgment that allowed an application by Airedale NHS trust to do so, supported by Bland’s parents and family, based on expert medical evidence that he could never recover. According to the law in 1989, no criminal charge relating to a death could be brought if the victim died longer than a year and a day after the acts alleged to have caused it. That “year and a day rule” was abolished by legislation in 1996, but Duckenfield is being prosecuted under the law as it applied at the time of the disaster.He is charged with failing in his duty, as the police officer in command, to take reasonable care for the safety of spectators at the areas of Hillsborough designated for Liverpool supporters, to protect them from overcrowding and crushing. The indictment alleges that Duckenfield breached his duty of care, to prevent people being crushed in pens three and four, that his breach amounted to criminal gross negligence, and was “a substantial cause” of the deaths. The maximum sentence for a person convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence is life in prison.Duckenfield has pleaded not guilty to the charge. The trial is expected to last about six weeks and will be broadcast live to the Cunard building in Liverpool, so that the families of the 96 people killed at Hillsborough, survivors and other members of the public can attend proceedings more easily than travelling to Preston.