20/05/2013 BBC News at Ten

language and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

Tonight, new evidence of the cover-up over Hillsborough.

It was decided early on that this is the way it was going to go. We can't

blame the police. With a new inquest ordered, pictures

never before broadcast reveal how Britain's worst sporting disaster

was allowed to happen. It is all on the news now. You are

the eyes of the world. But the full story wasn't told and

the truth was buried for a generation. It was cut out by a

public servant who didn't want the rest of the world to see that

evidence. It is a disgrace.

They have got their story straight. If you keep talking in this way, it

is not going to do you any good. Others were discredited.

He had never been described as naive before. In fact, he was described as

a very astute man with a great deal of integrity.

It is a scandal that paints the political establishment.

I got it wrong. I can't turn the clock back.

And justice was denied to the families of 96 people who died.

They used to say, you are right, Anne, but you will not be the

system. How could anybody, as a decent

human, that people through 24 years I have been following Liverpool

football club all my life. I have watched them grow to become one of

the world's get clubs with an international following. -- ageist

clubs. As a fan, the excitement of being at a match is unbeatable. We

were just as keen during the FA Cup Hillsborough, Sheffield. April 15,

1989. Liverpool had asked for more space at the ground because they had

more supporters than the opposition, Nottingham Forest. On the advice of

South Yorkshire police, the FA turned them down. 24,000 of us were

squeezed into the bottleneck were 12 hour -- which was our entrance on

Leppings Lane. We could not see the turnstiles.

Didn't really see any of the police. I was quite shocked. Stephanie was

18 and going to her first away game with her older brother, Richard, and

his girlfriend, Tracy. I thought maybe this is what it is

like. Maybe it is just good policing at a Liverpool ground. I didn't

know. I hadn't been away before. It wasn't only fans like Stephanie

who were concerned. PC Ray Powell was on plain clothes

duty that day. Normally there would be more

policemen forming queues. They would be more of a police presence.

Inside, the ground was full behind the goals. John Motson was

rehearsing for that night's broadcast. It was 2:41pm.

Liverpool 's followers, fed on success, are at the Leppings Lane

end. They have 24,000 tickets and have not seen their team lose since

New Year's Day. The match commander was based in the

police control box. Chiefs to be intended David Duckenfield had never

before handled a big game. -- chiefs are in. He had a good view of the

Leppings Lane end, and so did John Motson.

There is gap is, you know, in parts of the ground. Look at the Liverpool

ends to the right of the goal. There is hardly anybody on those steps. To

the right of their, look down there. Back then, supporters stood behind

the goals. The terrorist was divided into pens for crowd control. -- the

terrace. But the police did not separate the fans. They were left to

find their own level. It must have taken me 20 minutes to escape the

crush outside. But once through the turnstiles, I was safe, with a seat

alongside the pitch in the North stand. Jenni Hicks was in that

stand, too. She had juvenile from London with her husband and two

daughters. -- driven up. They had gone to stand on the Leppings Lane

terrorists. -- Terrace. You can see them behind the goal as the

Liverpool team is announced. It was getting more and more

crowded. I started to become quite uncomfortable about it. I knew that

my family could be there. I could not see them on the sides.

Her husband, Trevor, was in fact standing in a side pen. He, too,

began to worry as the crush behind the goal but worse.

I was looking over and starting to get anxious. I had a vivid picture

of an older guy, my sort of age now, in a grey suit, with grey hair,

pinned up against the radial fence, looking very distressed.

After being told that lives were at risk outside, Chief Superintendent

Duckenfield gave the order to open gate C, a large exit gate. Stephanie

Jones, her brother Richard and his girlfriend Tracy, headed for gate C.

We can just pick them out on police CCTV.

We were getting crushed outside. While it was opened, we went through

it into the clearing. We then proceeded at a normal walk down in

front of us, the only way we could see, down the tunnel.

In the past, when the pens were full, police closed off the tunnel

and diverted supporters to decide pens. Not today. 2000 poured through

the gate onto the already The momentum took us forward, and in

a short space of time, I was turned around and right at the front.

Tracey had lost a shoe. I could not reach it. Somebody picked up her

shoe and picked her up as well. That was the last time I saw either of

them. Even before the game, people were

dying on the terraces. The only way out for fans crushed against the

wall and fencing at the front was through a small, locked gate onto

the pitch. One for each pen. I remember shouting to the police by

the gate. We were asking them to take the

pressure off. He is basically ignoring us.

People began climbing the fence is in desperation. At the police, who

could see it all from the control box, assumed it was crowd trouble.

I saw people being pushed back over. By the police. People were trying to

get back out and they were getting pushed back in.

Hillsborough was a disaster like no other. It was recorded by eight BBC

cameras. The police had CCTV and a mobile camera unit. The BBC footage

was later released to the police and the families' lawyers, and then

locked away, considered too distressing for broadcast. 24 years

on, we have been able to analyse it. It shows how things went wrong from

the start at Hillsborough and continued going wrong for longer

than has ever been admitted. So, on a clear, sunny day, the stage

is set for a rerun of last year's classic. Stuart Pearce gives away

the first free kick. By now, police officers at the

Leppings Lane end had ended -- open the gates and were escorting fans to

the sides. But the gates were too small to get people out quickly.

Dozens were trapped at the front, many of them youngsters.

I was very distressed at this stage, because I could not move. I

was face-to-face with a man, who was obviously in trouble as well.

There may be an overflow in the crowd at the Leppings Lane end. But

there is room in the sections to either side if they can shift their

over. Police control steel feared a put --

pitch invasion and ordered reinforcements, even as the first

injured fans spilled onto the pitch. There are fans on the pitch. The

referee is go to have to stop the game.

Just before six minutes past three, the game is stopped. Fans run onto

the pitch, yelling for help. Some were in shock, like Stephanie Jones.

Fortunately for me, I found myself in front of the perimeter gate.

Somebody said to me, through here. I have no idea how it happened, I have

no idea if they have called me up, but they pulled me through the

perimeter gate. I was probably the first person they pulled through.

Steve Nicholl is trying to urge the fans to go back. Back on Merseyside,

those with family at the game soon heard news of a problem at

Hillsborough, among them Stephanie's mother.

The commentator's voice was very serious. He thought there was

injuries, and maybe a fatality in there. I started screaming right

Police commanders were slow to react. The FA's head of the mini

occasions, Glen Kirton, went to the control box to find out what was

going on. -- head of communications. We heard there was a break-in,

causing a rush of Liverpool supporters.

Already, the blame was being shifted onto the fans. Within minutes of the

game being stopped, John Motson heard the story.

I have got an explanation for what has happened. I am going to give you

a line. The story emerges that one of the outside gates leading to that

terrace is broken. People without tickets got in, and were therefore

crowding those with tickets, and that is why the crush occurred.

Supporters who had escaped did what they could to help the others.

I ended up getting pulled through the gate. I jumped up on the fence,

trying to pull people up, it was virtually impossible because the

fences were designed to keep you in, basically.

Fans and police tore at the fence to get to the injured strap against the

war. In the seats above the Leppings Lane Terrace, Dr John Ashton was

with his sons. I saw people being carried onto the

pitch. I turned to one of my boys and said, I think that person is

dead. Then there was another one and I said I think that one may be dead,

too, and that one. The police should have activated the

major incident plan for all of the services to swing into action. They

didn't. The first ambulance on the scene was from the St John's

Ambulance volunteers. Its arrival time, 3.15, were significant. A

coroner would later ruled that those who died were by then either already

dead or beyond saving. I went and made myself known to a policeman and

said what shall I do, he had no idea, and I realised that there was

nobody actually taking charge. I did what I could, which was not really

about applying first aid or anything, it was about trying to get

the right people off to hospital in the right order. When a second

ambulance arrived at the other end of the ground, Liverpool supporters

carried victims across the pitch on advertising hoardings. Among them

was an off-duty fireman. I just noticed people were putting people

on the boards and trying to ferry them across the pitch as quick as I

can and I think I done that two or three times. It was trying to look

for people who needed help and basically going from one person to

another, trying to do some basic first aid. Trevor Hicks was looking

for his two daughters. I went onto the pitch very quickly and quite

remarkably found Sarah and Vicky almost side by side. So suddenly I

am with both daughters and we're fighting to save their lives.

Ambulances arrived outside the ground. But crews and emergency

equipment weren't sent inside. Only one more ambulance drove onto the

pitch. The ambulance man on board this third vehicle says the

emergency response was chaotic. always think in terms of a rail

accident, could you imagine the public outcry if all ambulance crews

remained on an embankment simply because they couldn't get the

ambulance down to the scene of the accident. That doesn't happen. They

get out of their vehicles and if that's the length of a football

pitch that they have to go, then they make their way there. Alongside

the grief and the shock, there was already anger at what had been

allowed to happen at Hillsborough. They opened the gates, never even

took the stub, just opened the gates. Disgusting. There's at least

50 people dead tonight. The fans who were mercifully not injured have

left the ground most of them, and the feeling here now is one of

complete numbness. I was sitting on the coach and nobody was speaking.

And I couldn't stop shaking. And then the driver put the radio on and

then it come out like 16 dead. And then, obviously we was waiting for

people to come back and the numbers just kept going up and up and up.

Much worse was to come for the relatives of those who were

unaccounted for. The football club gym was now a temporary mortuary.

Trevor and Jenni Hicks arrived knowing their 15-year-old daughter

Vicky had died in hospital. 19-year-old Sarah was still missing.

Inside there were dozens of bodies to be identified. The police had

taken pictures of them all. Trevor and Jenni were asked if their

daughters were among them. There must have been 80-odd photographs.

Little Polaroid ones. And I looked and I couldn't see Sarah. I

recognised Vicky so, so the policeman just said to me, "Look

again, love." And when I looked again I saw her and that was the

Merseyside. Doreen and Leslie Jones knew their daughter Steph was safe.

But their son Richard and his girlfriend Tracy were missing.

wheeled the trolley in, and Richard was the first one they brought in,

and I identified him and then Tracy was wheeled in, and I identified

her. I wanted to touch my son, I wanted to hold him, and I wasn't

allowed to. We were told he was the property of the coroner and that I

couldn't touch him. Among the officers helping to identify the

dead at the gymn was PC Ray Powell. That night I cried, I went home and

I cried and I wasn't crying for myself I was crying for the

relatives of the people. The only thing I remember about the gymnasium

apart from the sectioned off was a fella punching a brick wall. And

it's like new brick, which is sharp, and he's punching this and nobody

took any bloody notice, it was disgraceful. That night, at South

Yorkshire Police Headquarters, the Chief Constable, Peter Wright, was

in no mood to accept any blame for the disaster. But he corrected the

false story that Liverpool fans had caused it by forcing open a gate.

The gate was opened at police direction. I am not aware of any

connection between the opening of the gate and the surge on the

terrace. Why was the gate opened, Chief Constable? Because there was

danger to life outside with crushing. How did it get that bad?

By late arrival of large numbers of people. 93 football fans, most, if

not all, Liverpool supporters have been crushed to death at the FA Cup

Semi Final at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough Ground. By ten o' clock

it was clear to thousands of us who'd been there what was to blame.

Overcrowding and poor policing had caused the disaster - which is what

I reported that night. Those of us who were trying to get into the

Leppings Lane end to the ground, the Liverpool end, were quite perturbed

and angered at the lack of adequate policing which led to dreadful

crushes outside which in turn led to was that a cover-up had already

begun. It lasted almost a quarter of a century. Until, last September,

when the Hillsborough Independent Panel published the result of years

of research. What we have here, 23 years of contemporaneous documents

stage by stage which has gone through a forensic analysis at all

contained here in the Sheffield Archive. There are nearly half a

million pages from confidential police, legal and government

documents. The records of inquiries, inquests and hearings. They show the

disaster was never properly investigated. It's meant that those

at fault have been able to shift the blame onto others. These documents

are now the starting point for our investigation into how and why that

the Coroner had ordered blood alcohol tests on them all, including

children. False allegations of drunkenness would be used again and

Minister arrives to be briefed by officers, including Chief

Superintendent Duckenfield, the man who lied about the gate. She was

told that "a tanked-up mob" had charged onto the terraces. Chief

Constable Wright was privately calling the Liverpool fans

"animalistic". We shall find all of the facts through an inquiry and we

mustn't make any judgement on partial facts. That weekend, South

Yorkshire Police were developing plans to defend themselves. Senior

officers were called to a meeting. Among them was Inspector Clive Davis

and his boss, a man whose role was to become increasingly controversial

as the years went by. I was working with a senior officer at that time,

it was Chief Inspector Norman Bettison. He said he was keen for us

to go to a briefing. This is an opportunity for us to get ourselves

recognised, those were his words to me. At the meeting, Clive Davis,

Norman Bettison and other officers heard the South Yorkshire Police

strategy spelt out. I think the exact words - and they are almost

indelibly stamped on my memory. " We're going to put the blame for

this where it deserves to be" or "where it should be, on the drunken

ticketless Liverpool supporters". "And we have to go now and find the

evidence to to make to show that this is the case". It was a message

that could stick. In the 1980s there was regular violence among football

crowds. Liverpool's reputation hadn't been particularly bad. But in

1985, 39 people were killed fleeing Liverpool fans during fighting at

the Heysel Stadium in Brussels. Now Sheffield's police federation,

backed by their chief constable, were blaming Liverpool fans for

Hillsborough. When you've got great big police horses there and I don't

know about you but they frighten me to death and they're diving under

their bellies and between their legs. Now anybody who does that - I

don't care what other people say, they're either mental or they're

drunk. The police federation and senior officers were feeding these

lines to journalists. The Lie became The Truth, with parts of the Press

ready to swallow it whole. You've no idea how much that has followed me

over the years, and how much that has deeply deeply hurt me over the

years that people could think, they're virtually blaming me for

killing my own brother and his girlfriend. It was decided very

early on, this is the way it's going to go, they can't possibly be

blamed, the police can't possibly be blamed. According to the Police

Federation today, their role in spreading those stories was

understandable. I think what the Federation Rep did was report what

had been told to him in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy. A

lot of the people there would have seen and heard bad things and they

report them either exaggerated, over exaggerated, whatever it may be and

it becomes their truth. Is that reasonable? It may have been

reasonable at the time, whether it looks reasonably looking back at it

over a a distance of time is a Liverpool's Anfield stadium had

become a shrine. Among the thousands paying their respects was the man

chosen to find out what had gone wrong at Hillsborough. This scene is

a most poignant and moving one, which makes one realise how deeply

this community has been afflicted and how deeply it feels its loss.

Lord Justice Taylor was to lead an independent inquiry. The government

had asked for an urgent report. Alongside him was the West Midlands

Chief Constable, Geoffrey Dear. His force was to investigate where the

blame lay. But South Yorkshire Police, who were under

investigation, were handed a trump card. Lord Justice Taylor allowed

them to take their own officers' statements. He decided and I fully

supported him, that one way to move through quickly was to ask the

police witnesses not those who were likely to be in the frame for

criminal prosecutions but the police witnesses to write their own

statements. The ordinary officers on the ground, basically? That's right,

yeah. And that's what they did. He wanted it done that way he saw that

was the quick way through, his decision. I'll take responsibility