:00:17. > :00:24.language and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.
:00:24. > :00:28.Tonight, new evidence of the cover-up over Hillsborough.
:00:28. > :00:38.It was decided early on that this is the way it was going to go. We can't
:00:38. > :00:38.
:00:38. > :00:40.blame the police. With a new inquest ordered, pictures
:00:40. > :00:45.never before broadcast reveal how Britain's worst sporting disaster
:00:45. > :00:52.was allowed to happen. It is all on the news now. You are
:00:52. > :00:58.the eyes of the world. But the full story wasn't told and
:00:58. > :01:01.the truth was buried for a generation. It was cut out by a
:01:01. > :01:08.public servant who didn't want the rest of the world to see that
:01:08. > :01:12.evidence. It is a disgrace.
:01:12. > :01:22.They have got their story straight. If you keep talking in this way, it
:01:22. > :01:23.
:01:23. > :01:27.is not going to do you any good. Others were discredited.
:01:27. > :01:33.He had never been described as naive before. In fact, he was described as
:01:33. > :01:39.a very astute man with a great deal of integrity.
:01:39. > :01:43.It is a scandal that paints the political establishment.
:01:43. > :01:49.I got it wrong. I can't turn the clock back.
:01:49. > :01:53.And justice was denied to the families of 96 people who died.
:01:53. > :01:58.They used to say, you are right, Anne, but you will not be the
:01:58. > :02:08.system. How could anybody, as a decent
:02:08. > :02:20.
:02:20. > :02:24.human, that people through 24 years I have been following Liverpool
:02:24. > :02:29.football club all my life. I have watched them grow to become one of
:02:29. > :02:38.the world's get clubs with an international following. -- ageist
:02:38. > :02:48.clubs. As a fan, the excitement of being at a match is unbeatable. We
:02:48. > :02:52.
:02:52. > :02:59.were just as keen during the FA Cup Hillsborough, Sheffield. April 15,
:02:59. > :03:05.1989. Liverpool had asked for more space at the ground because they had
:03:05. > :03:10.more supporters than the opposition, Nottingham Forest. On the advice of
:03:10. > :03:17.South Yorkshire police, the FA turned them down. 24,000 of us were
:03:17. > :03:22.squeezed into the bottleneck were 12 hour -- which was our entrance on
:03:22. > :03:28.Leppings Lane. We could not see the turnstiles.
:03:28. > :03:31.Didn't really see any of the police. I was quite shocked. Stephanie was
:03:31. > :03:37.18 and going to her first away game with her older brother, Richard, and
:03:37. > :03:41.his girlfriend, Tracy. I thought maybe this is what it is
:03:41. > :03:48.like. Maybe it is just good policing at a Liverpool ground. I didn't
:03:48. > :03:55.know. I hadn't been away before. It wasn't only fans like Stephanie
:03:55. > :04:00.who were concerned. PC Ray Powell was on plain clothes
:04:00. > :04:07.duty that day. Normally there would be more
:04:08. > :04:12.policemen forming queues. They would be more of a police presence.
:04:12. > :04:20.Inside, the ground was full behind the goals. John Motson was
:04:20. > :04:23.rehearsing for that night's broadcast. It was 2:41pm.
:04:23. > :04:28.Liverpool 's followers, fed on success, are at the Leppings Lane
:04:28. > :04:33.end. They have 24,000 tickets and have not seen their team lose since
:04:33. > :04:37.New Year's Day. The match commander was based in the
:04:37. > :04:44.police control box. Chiefs to be intended David Duckenfield had never
:04:44. > :04:49.before handled a big game. -- chiefs are in. He had a good view of the
:04:49. > :04:53.Leppings Lane end, and so did John Motson.
:04:53. > :04:59.There is gap is, you know, in parts of the ground. Look at the Liverpool
:04:59. > :05:07.ends to the right of the goal. There is hardly anybody on those steps. To
:05:07. > :05:11.the right of their, look down there. Back then, supporters stood behind
:05:11. > :05:18.the goals. The terrorist was divided into pens for crowd control. -- the
:05:18. > :05:23.terrace. But the police did not separate the fans. They were left to
:05:23. > :05:28.find their own level. It must have taken me 20 minutes to escape the
:05:28. > :05:33.crush outside. But once through the turnstiles, I was safe, with a seat
:05:33. > :05:37.alongside the pitch in the North stand. Jenni Hicks was in that
:05:37. > :05:43.stand, too. She had juvenile from London with her husband and two
:05:43. > :05:51.daughters. -- driven up. They had gone to stand on the Leppings Lane
:05:51. > :05:57.terrorists. -- Terrace. You can see them behind the goal as the
:05:57. > :06:04.Liverpool team is announced. It was getting more and more
:06:04. > :06:10.crowded. I started to become quite uncomfortable about it. I knew that
:06:10. > :06:16.my family could be there. I could not see them on the sides.
:06:16. > :06:20.Her husband, Trevor, was in fact standing in a side pen. He, too,
:06:20. > :06:26.began to worry as the crush behind the goal but worse.
:06:26. > :06:34.I was looking over and starting to get anxious. I had a vivid picture
:06:34. > :06:44.of an older guy, my sort of age now, in a grey suit, with grey hair,
:06:44. > :06:44.
:06:45. > :06:49.pinned up against the radial fence, looking very distressed.
:06:49. > :06:59.After being told that lives were at risk outside, Chief Superintendent
:06:59. > :07:02.
:07:02. > :07:08.Duckenfield gave the order to open gate C, a large exit gate. Stephanie
:07:08. > :07:14.Jones, her brother Richard and his girlfriend Tracy, headed for gate C.
:07:14. > :07:20.We can just pick them out on police CCTV.
:07:20. > :07:27.We were getting crushed outside. While it was opened, we went through
:07:27. > :07:37.it into the clearing. We then proceeded at a normal walk down in
:07:37. > :07:41.front of us, the only way we could see, down the tunnel.
:07:41. > :07:46.In the past, when the pens were full, police closed off the tunnel
:07:46. > :07:56.and diverted supporters to decide pens. Not today. 2000 poured through
:07:56. > :07:58.
:07:58. > :08:04.the gate onto the already The momentum took us forward, and in
:08:04. > :08:11.a short space of time, I was turned around and right at the front.
:08:11. > :08:15.Tracey had lost a shoe. I could not reach it. Somebody picked up her
:08:15. > :08:20.shoe and picked her up as well. That was the last time I saw either of
:08:20. > :08:27.them. Even before the game, people were
:08:27. > :08:31.dying on the terraces. The only way out for fans crushed against the
:08:31. > :08:38.wall and fencing at the front was through a small, locked gate onto
:08:38. > :08:40.the pitch. One for each pen. I remember shouting to the police by
:08:40. > :08:47.the gate. We were asking them to take the
:08:47. > :08:52.pressure off. He is basically ignoring us.
:08:52. > :08:58.People began climbing the fence is in desperation. At the police, who
:08:58. > :09:03.could see it all from the control box, assumed it was crowd trouble.
:09:03. > :09:09.I saw people being pushed back over. By the police. People were trying to
:09:09. > :09:14.get back out and they were getting pushed back in.
:09:14. > :09:22.Hillsborough was a disaster like no other. It was recorded by eight BBC
:09:22. > :09:25.cameras. The police had CCTV and a mobile camera unit. The BBC footage
:09:25. > :09:31.was later released to the police and the families' lawyers, and then
:09:31. > :09:36.locked away, considered too distressing for broadcast. 24 years
:09:36. > :09:40.on, we have been able to analyse it. It shows how things went wrong from
:09:40. > :09:49.the start at Hillsborough and continued going wrong for longer
:09:49. > :09:55.than has ever been admitted. So, on a clear, sunny day, the stage
:09:55. > :10:01.is set for a rerun of last year's classic. Stuart Pearce gives away
:10:01. > :10:08.the first free kick. By now, police officers at the
:10:08. > :10:12.Leppings Lane end had ended -- open the gates and were escorting fans to
:10:12. > :10:19.the sides. But the gates were too small to get people out quickly.
:10:19. > :10:24.Dozens were trapped at the front, many of them youngsters.
:10:24. > :10:31.I was very distressed at this stage, because I could not move. I
:10:31. > :10:38.was face-to-face with a man, who was obviously in trouble as well.
:10:38. > :10:41.There may be an overflow in the crowd at the Leppings Lane end. But
:10:41. > :10:47.there is room in the sections to either side if they can shift their
:10:47. > :10:49.over. Police control steel feared a put --
:10:49. > :10:56.pitch invasion and ordered reinforcements, even as the first
:10:56. > :11:00.injured fans spilled onto the pitch. There are fans on the pitch. The
:11:00. > :11:06.referee is go to have to stop the game.
:11:06. > :11:16.Just before six minutes past three, the game is stopped. Fans run onto
:11:16. > :11:17.
:11:17. > :11:21.the pitch, yelling for help. Some were in shock, like Stephanie Jones.
:11:21. > :11:26.Fortunately for me, I found myself in front of the perimeter gate.
:11:26. > :11:31.Somebody said to me, through here. I have no idea how it happened, I have
:11:31. > :11:39.no idea if they have called me up, but they pulled me through the
:11:39. > :11:47.perimeter gate. I was probably the first person they pulled through.
:11:47. > :11:50.Steve Nicholl is trying to urge the fans to go back. Back on Merseyside,
:11:50. > :11:57.those with family at the game soon heard news of a problem at
:11:57. > :12:02.Hillsborough, among them Stephanie's mother.
:12:02. > :12:07.The commentator's voice was very serious. He thought there was
:12:07. > :12:17.injuries, and maybe a fatality in there. I started screaming right
:12:17. > :12:21.
:12:21. > :12:24.Police commanders were slow to react. The FA's head of the mini
:12:24. > :12:32.occasions, Glen Kirton, went to the control box to find out what was
:12:32. > :12:38.going on. -- head of communications. We heard there was a break-in,
:12:38. > :12:43.causing a rush of Liverpool supporters.
:12:43. > :12:48.Already, the blame was being shifted onto the fans. Within minutes of the
:12:48. > :12:52.game being stopped, John Motson heard the story.
:12:52. > :12:58.I have got an explanation for what has happened. I am going to give you
:12:58. > :13:05.a line. The story emerges that one of the outside gates leading to that
:13:05. > :13:09.terrace is broken. People without tickets got in, and were therefore
:13:09. > :13:16.crowding those with tickets, and that is why the crush occurred.
:13:16. > :13:20.Supporters who had escaped did what they could to help the others.
:13:20. > :13:25.I ended up getting pulled through the gate. I jumped up on the fence,
:13:25. > :13:29.trying to pull people up, it was virtually impossible because the
:13:29. > :13:33.fences were designed to keep you in, basically.
:13:33. > :13:38.Fans and police tore at the fence to get to the injured strap against the
:13:38. > :13:44.war. In the seats above the Leppings Lane Terrace, Dr John Ashton was
:13:44. > :13:47.with his sons. I saw people being carried onto the
:13:47. > :13:53.pitch. I turned to one of my boys and said, I think that person is
:13:53. > :13:59.dead. Then there was another one and I said I think that one may be dead,
:13:59. > :14:02.too, and that one. The police should have activated the
:14:02. > :14:07.major incident plan for all of the services to swing into action. They
:14:07. > :14:16.didn't. The first ambulance on the scene was from the St John's
:14:16. > :14:19.Ambulance volunteers. Its arrival time, 3.15, were significant. A
:14:20. > :14:29.coroner would later ruled that those who died were by then either already
:14:29. > :14:32.dead or beyond saving. I went and made myself known to a policeman and
:14:32. > :14:37.said what shall I do, he had no idea, and I realised that there was
:14:37. > :14:40.nobody actually taking charge. I did what I could, which was not really
:14:40. > :14:45.about applying first aid or anything, it was about trying to get
:14:45. > :14:48.the right people off to hospital in the right order. When a second
:14:48. > :14:51.ambulance arrived at the other end of the ground, Liverpool supporters
:14:51. > :15:01.carried victims across the pitch on advertising hoardings. Among them
:15:01. > :15:05.
:15:05. > :15:09.was an off-duty fireman. I just noticed people were putting people
:15:09. > :15:13.on the boards and trying to ferry them across the pitch as quick as I
:15:13. > :15:16.can and I think I done that two or three times. It was trying to look
:15:16. > :15:20.for people who needed help and basically going from one person to
:15:21. > :15:26.another, trying to do some basic first aid. Trevor Hicks was looking
:15:26. > :15:31.for his two daughters. I went onto the pitch very quickly and quite
:15:31. > :15:38.remarkably found Sarah and Vicky almost side by side. So suddenly I
:15:38. > :15:42.am with both daughters and we're fighting to save their lives.
:15:42. > :15:48.Ambulances arrived outside the ground. But crews and emergency
:15:48. > :15:55.equipment weren't sent inside. Only one more ambulance drove onto the
:15:55. > :16:01.pitch. The ambulance man on board this third vehicle says the
:16:01. > :16:04.emergency response was chaotic. always think in terms of a rail
:16:04. > :16:06.accident, could you imagine the public outcry if all ambulance crews
:16:06. > :16:12.remained on an embankment simply because they couldn't get the
:16:12. > :16:16.ambulance down to the scene of the accident. That doesn't happen. They
:16:16. > :16:22.get out of their vehicles and if that's the length of a football
:16:22. > :16:25.pitch that they have to go, then they make their way there. Alongside
:16:25. > :16:31.the grief and the shock, there was already anger at what had been
:16:31. > :16:36.allowed to happen at Hillsborough. They opened the gates, never even
:16:36. > :16:43.took the stub, just opened the gates. Disgusting. There's at least
:16:43. > :16:47.50 people dead tonight. The fans who were mercifully not injured have
:16:47. > :16:54.left the ground most of them, and the feeling here now is one of
:16:54. > :17:04.complete numbness. I was sitting on the coach and nobody was speaking.
:17:04. > :17:10.
:17:10. > :17:15.And I couldn't stop shaking. And then the driver put the radio on and
:17:15. > :17:20.then it come out like 16 dead. And then, obviously we was waiting for
:17:20. > :17:23.people to come back and the numbers just kept going up and up and up.
:17:23. > :17:29.Much worse was to come for the relatives of those who were
:17:29. > :17:31.unaccounted for. The football club gym was now a temporary mortuary.
:17:31. > :17:38.Trevor and Jenni Hicks arrived knowing their 15-year-old daughter
:17:38. > :17:42.Vicky had died in hospital. 19-year-old Sarah was still missing.
:17:43. > :17:47.Inside there were dozens of bodies to be identified. The police had
:17:47. > :17:53.taken pictures of them all. Trevor and Jenni were asked if their
:17:53. > :18:01.daughters were among them. There must have been 80-odd photographs.
:18:01. > :18:04.Little Polaroid ones. And I looked and I couldn't see Sarah. I
:18:04. > :18:08.recognised Vicky so, so the policeman just said to me, "Look
:18:08. > :18:18.again, love." And when I looked again I saw her and that was the
:18:18. > :18:28.
:18:28. > :18:36.Merseyside. Doreen and Leslie Jones knew their daughter Steph was safe.
:18:36. > :18:39.But their son Richard and his girlfriend Tracy were missing.
:18:39. > :18:42.wheeled the trolley in, and Richard was the first one they brought in,
:18:43. > :18:52.and I identified him and then Tracy was wheeled in, and I identified
:18:52. > :18:58.her. I wanted to touch my son, I wanted to hold him, and I wasn't
:18:58. > :19:05.allowed to. We were told he was the property of the coroner and that I
:19:05. > :19:15.couldn't touch him. Among the officers helping to identify the
:19:15. > :19:18.dead at the gymn was PC Ray Powell. That night I cried, I went home and
:19:18. > :19:28.I cried and I wasn't crying for myself I was crying for the
:19:28. > :19:37.
:19:37. > :19:42.relatives of the people. The only thing I remember about the gymnasium
:19:42. > :19:45.apart from the sectioned off was a fella punching a brick wall. And
:19:46. > :19:55.it's like new brick, which is sharp, and he's punching this and nobody
:19:55. > :19:58.took any bloody notice, it was disgraceful. That night, at South
:19:58. > :20:04.Yorkshire Police Headquarters, the Chief Constable, Peter Wright, was
:20:04. > :20:09.in no mood to accept any blame for the disaster. But he corrected the
:20:09. > :20:14.false story that Liverpool fans had caused it by forcing open a gate.
:20:14. > :20:17.The gate was opened at police direction. I am not aware of any
:20:17. > :20:23.connection between the opening of the gate and the surge on the
:20:23. > :20:28.terrace. Why was the gate opened, Chief Constable? Because there was
:20:28. > :20:35.danger to life outside with crushing. How did it get that bad?
:20:35. > :20:39.By late arrival of large numbers of people. 93 football fans, most, if
:20:39. > :20:43.not all, Liverpool supporters have been crushed to death at the FA Cup
:20:43. > :20:47.Semi Final at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough Ground. By ten o' clock
:20:47. > :20:50.it was clear to thousands of us who'd been there what was to blame.
:20:50. > :20:57.Overcrowding and poor policing had caused the disaster - which is what
:20:57. > :21:00.I reported that night. Those of us who were trying to get into the
:21:00. > :21:03.Leppings Lane end to the ground, the Liverpool end, were quite perturbed
:21:03. > :21:13.and angered at the lack of adequate policing which led to dreadful
:21:13. > :21:16.
:21:17. > :21:25.crushes outside which in turn led to was that a cover-up had already
:21:25. > :21:28.begun. It lasted almost a quarter of a century. Until, last September,
:21:28. > :21:35.when the Hillsborough Independent Panel published the result of years
:21:35. > :21:38.of research. What we have here, 23 years of contemporaneous documents
:21:38. > :21:48.stage by stage which has gone through a forensic analysis at all
:21:48. > :21:56.
:21:56. > :21:58.contained here in the Sheffield Archive. There are nearly half a
:21:58. > :22:02.million pages from confidential police, legal and government
:22:02. > :22:11.documents. The records of inquiries, inquests and hearings. They show the
:22:11. > :22:15.disaster was never properly investigated. It's meant that those
:22:15. > :22:18.at fault have been able to shift the blame onto others. These documents
:22:18. > :22:28.are now the starting point for our investigation into how and why that
:22:28. > :22:31.
:22:31. > :22:35.the Coroner had ordered blood alcohol tests on them all, including
:22:35. > :22:45.children. False allegations of drunkenness would be used again and
:22:45. > :22:46.
:22:46. > :22:52.Minister arrives to be briefed by officers, including Chief
:22:52. > :22:58.Superintendent Duckenfield, the man who lied about the gate. She was
:22:58. > :23:00.told that "a tanked-up mob" had charged onto the terraces. Chief
:23:00. > :23:09.Constable Wright was privately calling the Liverpool fans
:23:09. > :23:15."animalistic". We shall find all of the facts through an inquiry and we
:23:15. > :23:19.mustn't make any judgement on partial facts. That weekend, South
:23:19. > :23:24.Yorkshire Police were developing plans to defend themselves. Senior
:23:24. > :23:27.officers were called to a meeting. Among them was Inspector Clive Davis
:23:27. > :23:36.and his boss, a man whose role was to become increasingly controversial
:23:36. > :23:41.as the years went by. I was working with a senior officer at that time,
:23:42. > :23:47.it was Chief Inspector Norman Bettison. He said he was keen for us
:23:47. > :23:52.to go to a briefing. This is an opportunity for us to get ourselves
:23:52. > :23:55.recognised, those were his words to me. At the meeting, Clive Davis,
:23:55. > :24:04.Norman Bettison and other officers heard the South Yorkshire Police
:24:04. > :24:14.strategy spelt out. I think the exact words - and they are almost
:24:14. > :24:16.
:24:16. > :24:19.indelibly stamped on my memory. " We're going to put the blame for
:24:19. > :24:26.this where it deserves to be" or "where it should be, on the drunken
:24:26. > :24:31.ticketless Liverpool supporters". "And we have to go now and find the
:24:31. > :24:34.evidence to to make to show that this is the case". It was a message
:24:34. > :24:39.that could stick. In the 1980s there was regular violence among football
:24:39. > :24:42.crowds. Liverpool's reputation hadn't been particularly bad. But in
:24:42. > :24:51.1985, 39 people were killed fleeing Liverpool fans during fighting at
:24:51. > :24:53.the Heysel Stadium in Brussels. Now Sheffield's police federation,
:24:53. > :25:03.backed by their chief constable, were blaming Liverpool fans for
:25:03. > :25:03.
:25:03. > :25:06.Hillsborough. When you've got great big police horses there and I don't
:25:06. > :25:16.know about you but they frighten me to death and they're diving under
:25:16. > :25:18.
:25:18. > :25:20.their bellies and between their legs. Now anybody who does that - I
:25:20. > :25:23.don't care what other people say, they're either mental or they're
:25:23. > :25:28.drunk. The police federation and senior officers were feeding these
:25:28. > :25:35.lines to journalists. The Lie became The Truth, with parts of the Press
:25:35. > :25:39.ready to swallow it whole. You've no idea how much that has followed me
:25:39. > :25:41.over the years, and how much that has deeply deeply hurt me over the
:25:41. > :25:49.years that people could think, they're virtually blaming me for
:25:49. > :25:53.killing my own brother and his girlfriend. It was decided very
:25:53. > :25:56.early on, this is the way it's going to go, they can't possibly be
:25:56. > :25:59.blamed, the police can't possibly be blamed. According to the Police
:25:59. > :26:04.Federation today, their role in spreading those stories was
:26:04. > :26:14.understandable. I think what the Federation Rep did was report what
:26:14. > :26:14.
:26:14. > :26:18.had been told to him in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy. A
:26:18. > :26:21.lot of the people there would have seen and heard bad things and they
:26:21. > :26:23.report them either exaggerated, over exaggerated, whatever it may be and
:26:23. > :26:26.it becomes their truth. Is that reasonable? It may have been
:26:26. > :26:36.reasonable at the time, whether it looks reasonably looking back at it
:26:36. > :26:41.over a a distance of time is a Liverpool's Anfield stadium had
:26:41. > :26:51.become a shrine. Among the thousands paying their respects was the man
:26:51. > :26:51.
:26:51. > :26:54.chosen to find out what had gone wrong at Hillsborough. This scene is
:26:54. > :26:59.a most poignant and moving one, which makes one realise how deeply
:26:59. > :27:04.this community has been afflicted and how deeply it feels its loss.
:27:04. > :27:09.Lord Justice Taylor was to lead an independent inquiry. The government
:27:09. > :27:13.had asked for an urgent report. Alongside him was the West Midlands
:27:13. > :27:19.Chief Constable, Geoffrey Dear. His force was to investigate where the
:27:19. > :27:24.blame lay. But South Yorkshire Police, who were under
:27:24. > :27:34.investigation, were handed a trump card. Lord Justice Taylor allowed
:27:34. > :27:41.
:27:41. > :27:45.them to take their own officers' statements. He decided and I fully
:27:45. > :27:48.supported him, that one way to move through quickly was to ask the
:27:48. > :27:50.police witnesses not those who were likely to be in the frame for
:27:50. > :27:53.criminal prosecutions but the police witnesses to write their own
:27:53. > :27:57.statements. The ordinary officers on the ground, basically? That's right,
:27:57. > :27:59.yeah. And that's what they did. He wanted it done that way he saw that
:27:59. > :28:03.was the quick way through, his decision. I'll take responsibility