Hillsborough inquests: police memo 'attempted to denigrate fans'

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/21/hillsborough-inquests-police-memo-liverpool-fans

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South Yorkshire police attempted to “denigrate” Liverpool football club supporters after 96 of them died at Hillsborough in 1989, by emphasising allegations that fans were drinking and misbehaving, a former senior officer has admitted.

Terry Wain, a chief superintendent during the disaster in April 1989, accepted under questioning at the new inquests into the deaths that that evidence was not relevant to how the people died and that the force’s attitude had been “disgraceful”.

The inquests were shown that in July 1990, after Lord Justice Taylor had published his report into the disaster, but before the first inquests were due to start in Sheffield, Wain ordered a detective inspector, John Cleverley, to find the “best evidence” on drunkenness and misbehaviour by Liverpool supporters.

“Please interrogate the system,” Wain’s memo to Cleverley ordered, “to show officers who can give the best evidence concerning: unruly behaviour by Liverpool football fans; non-ticket holders gaining entry; forged tickets used to gain entry; drunkenness by fans; public houses in the area being crowded out” and “sales of intoxicants generally, eg in off-licences and supermarkets.”

What has this conceivably got to do with the deaths of those people?

Mark George QC, representing 22 families whose relatives were killed in the lethal crush on the overcrowded central pens of Hillsborough’s Leppings Lane terrace at Liverpool’s FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest, put to Wain that this memo “set out South Yorkshire police’s priorities” before the first inquests.

Wain replied that he did not recall the memo and that he must have been responding to a request from South Yorkshire police’s legal team, not generating the action himself.

“Are you shocked to see that document?” George asked him.

“I am, yes,” Wain replied.

“What has this conceivably got to do with the deaths of those people?” George asked.

“I don’t see the relevance,” Wain said, “but that’s not something I would have generated of my own volition.”

George continued, and put to Wain: “It looks, doesn’t it, to anyone reading it, as if this is clear evidence of an attempt to denigrate the fans?”

“I must agree with you,” Wain responded.

“Yes,” George said. “It’s disgraceful, isn’t it, that that is the attitude of the South Yorkshire police?

“Yes,” Wain replied, “I’m not happy with what I’m reading there.”

Terry Munyard, representing three of the families whose relatives were killed at Hillsborough, referred Wain to the order given by a South Yorkshire police officer at 5.55pm on the day of the disaster, to take photographs of litter and dustbins outside the football ground for evidence of alcohol cans and bottles.

That order was given, Munyard said, with “the [dead] bodies still lying in the gymnasium” used as a temporary mortuary at Hillsborough.

“Do you accept that South Yorkshire police were already starting to create the narrative that this disaster was in some way caused by drunken Liverpool fans?” Munyard asked him.

“It would appear to be the case, yes,” Wain replied.

“This would appear to be at a very early stage the beginning of the South Yorkshire case being gathered together,” Munyard suggested.

“It would appear so, yes,” Wain said.

Questioned by his own barrister, Christopher Daw QC, Wain agreed that the report on the disaster which he oversaw on behalf of the South Yorkshire police chief constable, Peter Wright, was based on the accounts given by individual officers.

Wain acknowledged on his first day of evidence, on Monday, that his report gave a favourable view of the police response to the disaster and did not include criticisms of police leadership or some junior officers. The report, he agreed, did not mention that the police had a practice of closing off the tunnel leading to the Leppings Lane pens when they were full, which they did not do on the day of the disaster.

He agreed with Daw that, in hindsight, there were “occasions when the choice of language or sentiment could have been better expressed” in his report, that some “matters” which should have been included were not and some which were included “could have been dealt with in a different way”. However, asked if the report was produced and presented “honestly and in good faith”, Wain replied: “Yes, absolutely.”

Daw took Wain through his police career. He confessed to being “an autocrat” but said he had gained his promotions, which included working on the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, through hard work and had not sought to rise through the ranks by joining the freemasons or other organisations.

Asked what his reaction would have been to be party to a “cover-up”, which bereaved families’ lawyers have alleged the police perpetrated over Hillsborough, Wain replied: “I wouldn’t have allowed it. My nature wouldn’t have alllowed it.”

The inquests continue on Wednesday with the evidence from the former chief superintendent Donald Denton, who oversaw the amending of police officers’ statements to the Taylor inquiry, on the advice of South Yorkshire police lawyers.