Hillsborough - How They Buried the Truth Panorama

COMMENTATOR: And there are fans on the pitch here in the six yard area.

The referee's going to have to stop the game.

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

It was decided very early on, this is the way it is going to go,

we can't possibly be blamed, the police can't possibly be blamed.

With a new inquest ordered,

pictures never before broadcast reveal how Britain's

worst sporting disaster was allowed to happen.

-It's on yous boys.

-It's not on.

-It's all on yous now.

You are the eyes of the world. You've got to show this to everybody.

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.

Some witnesses were leaned on.

They've got their story straight.

If you keep talking in this way it's not going to do you any good.

Others were discredited.

He'd never been described as naive before.

In fact, he'd always been described as a very astute man

with a great deal of integrity.

It's a scandal that taints the political establishment...

I didn't get this thing right.

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

..and justice was denied for the families of 96 people who died.

They used to say, "You're right, Anne,

"but you'll not beat the system."

How could anybody, as a decent human being,

put people through nearly 24 years and they knew?

I've been following Liverpool Football Club all my life.

I've watched them grow to become one of the world's biggest clubs

with an international following.

As a fan, the excitement you get

from being at the match is hard to beat.

We were just as keen back in the 1980s

on the day we all went over to Sheffield for another big match -

an FA Cup semi-final.

FANS CHANTING

Hillsborough, Sheffield, April 15th, 1989.

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

more supporters than the opposition, Nottingham Forest.

But, on the advice of South Yorkshire Police,

the FA turned them down.

So, 24,000 of us were squeezed into the bottleneck

which was our entrance on Leppings Lane.

There was a mass of people outside the ground,

couldn't see the turnstiles,

and didn't really see any of the police,

and I was quite shocked.

Stephanie was 18, going to her first away game

with her older brother, Richard, and his girlfriend, Tracey.

I thought, maybe this is what it's like, maybe it's just

good policing at Liverpool ground, I don't know,

cos I'd not been away before.

It wasn't only fans like Stephanie who were concerned.

I was surprised at the lack of police officers

at that end of the ground.

PC Ray Powell was on plain clothes duty in the crowd that day.

There'd normally be more policemen forming queues,

making sure there was order?

Normally there would be a little more

of a police presence there.

Inside, the ground was full behind the goals.

The BBC's John Motson was rehearsing for that night's Match Of The Day.

It was 2:41.

JOHN MOTSON: Liverpool's faithful followers,

fed on success for 25 years, are at the Leppings Lane end.

They have 24,000 tickets and haven't seen their team lose

since New Year's Day.

The match commander was based in the police control box.

Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield

had never before handled a big game.

He had a good view of the Leppings Lane end,

and so did John Motson.

There's gaps, you know, in parts of the ground.

Well, you look at the Liverpool end, to the right of the goal.

There's hardly anybody on those steps.

No, to the right of there.

That's it, look down there.

Back then, supporters stood behind the goals,

the terrace divided into pens for crowd control.

But the police didn't direct fans into separate pens

to avoid overcrowding - 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.

Jenny Hicks was in that stand, too.

She'd driven up from London with her husband and two daughters.

They'd gone to stand on the Leppings Lane terrace.

You can just glimpse the girls, Sarah and Vicky,

right behind the goal as the Liverpool team's announced.

It was getting more and more crowded.

And I started to become quite uncomfortable about it.

Knowing that my family could be there,

because I couldn't 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 got worse.

I was looking over and starting to get anxious

about Sarah and Vicky.

I have a very vivid picture of an old-ish 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, Tracey, headed for Gate C.

We can just pick them out on police CCTV.

We were getting crushed outside.

So, when it was opened, we went through it into the clearing.

And then just proceeded at a normal walk

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

Down the tunnel.

In the past, when the central pens were full,

police had closed off the tunnel

and diverted supporters to the side pens.

Not today.

2,000 poured through the gate onto the already overcrowded terraces.

The momentum took us forward, and in a very short space of time

I found myself turned around and right at the very front.

Tracey had lost her shoe, and I couldn't reach her.

Somebody picked up her shoe and picked her up, as well,

because she'd fallen, and that was the last time I saw either of them.

Even before the game kicked off, 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 us shouting to the policeman by the gate.

We were asking him to open the gate to take the pressure off.

He was standing there looking and he's just basically ignoring us,

and people are screaming at him to open the gate.

People began climbing the fences in desperation.

But 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?

-By the police, yeah.

People were trying to get out and they were being 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've 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.

JOHN MOTSON: So, on a clear, sunny day at Hillsborough,

the stage is set for a rerun of last year's classic.

Liverpool in red, Forest all in white,

Stuart Pearce gives away the first free-kick.

By now, police officers at the Leppings Lane end had opened

the gates behind the goal 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 couldn't move,

I was face to face with a man

who was obviously in trouble as well.

-COMMENTATOR:

-I think there may be a slight overflow in the crowd

at the Liverpool end, at the Leppings Lane end of the ground.

But there is room in the sections to either side

if they can shift them over.

But police control still feared a pitch invasion

and ordered up reinforcements,

even as the first injured fans spilled onto the pitch.

And there are fans on the pitch here in the six-yard area.

The referee is going to have to stop the game.

Just before 3:06, the game is stopped.

Fans ran onto the pitch, yelling for help.

Some were in shock, like Stephanie Jones.

Fortunately for me,

I had found myself in front of the perimeter gate.

Somebody said to me, "Through here."

I have no idea how it happened, I don't know how they've hugged me up

or pulled me up, but they pulled me through the perimeter gate and I was

probably the first person they pulled out of the gate onto the pitch.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Steve Nicol is trying to urge the fans to go back

and they are saying there's no room.

Back on Merseyside, those with family at the game soon heard

news of a problem at Hillsborough, among them Stephanie's mother.

I had a look at the television, which was on.

The commentator's voice was very, very serious

and he thought there was injuries and maybe a fatality in there

and I just started screaming right away, "My three are in there!"

Open the gate!

SHOUTING

Police commanders were slow to react.

The FA's head of communications, Glen Kirton,

went to the control box to find out what was going on.

Mr Duckenfield said there had been a break-in at one of the gates,

-caused by an inrush of Liverpool supporters.

-A break-in?

-Yes.

Already, the blame for Hillsborough was being shifted onto the fans.

Within minutes of the game being stopped,

John Motson heard the story.

-MOTSON:

-Yeah, I've got an explanation for what's happened here.

I'm going to give you a line.

And this story emerges that one of the outside gates

leading into that terrace was broken.

People without tickets got in, were therefore overcrowding

the people with tickets and that's why the crush occurred.

Supporters who had escaped the crush

did what they could to help the others.

I ended up getting pulled through the gate

and I jumped up on the fence, trying to pull people up,

but it was virtually impossible to pull them out

because the fences were designed to keep you in, basically.

Fans and police tore at the fence to get to the injured,

trapped against the wall.

In the seats above the Leppings Lane terrace,

Dr John Ashton was with his two sons.

I saw people being carried onto the pitch

and I turned to one of my boys and I said,

"I think that person is dead," and 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 the emergency services to swing into action,

but they didn't, so the first ambulance on the scene

was from the St John's Ambulance volunteers.

Its arrival time, 3:15, was significant.

A coroner would later rule that all of those who died were by then

either already dead or beyond saving.

I went and made myself known to a policeman and said,

"What should 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 they 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 are fighting to save their lives.

SIRENS WAIL

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.

I 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.

-They said, "All pile in."

It's disgusting and there is at least 50 people dead tonight.

COMMENTATOR: The fans who were mercifully not injured

have left the ground, most of them,

and the feeling here now is one of complete numbness.

We were sitting on the coach and nobody was speaking.

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

and then it come out that there was like...16 dead

and then... Obviously we were 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 unaccounted for.

The football club gym was now a temporary mortuary.

Trevor and Jenny Hicks arrived

knowing their 15-year-old daughter Vicky had died in hospital.

19-year-old Sarah was still missing.

Inside, were dozens of bodies to be identified.

The police had taken pictures of them all.

Trevor and Jenny were asked if their daughter 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 the policeman just said to me,

"Look again, love."

And when I looked again, I saw her.

And that was the point I knew it was both of them.

Many families were now arriving from Merseyside.

Doreen and Leslie Jones knew their daughter Steph was safe,

but their son Richard and his girlfriend Tracey were missing.

They wheeled the trolley in and Richard

was the first one whose body they brought in

and I identified him and then Tracey 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 gym

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 part that was sectioned off,

was a fellow punching a brick wall and it was like,

you know, new brick, which is sharp

and he was punching it and nobody took any bloody notice.

TEARFULLY: 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... 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.

-JOURNALIST:

-Why was the gate opened, Chief Inspector?

Because there was danger to life outside with crushing.

-JOURNALIST:

-How did it get that bad?

By late arrival of large numbers of people.

NEWSREADER: 93 football fans,

most, if not all, Liverpool supporters

have been crushed to death at the FA Cup semi-final at...

'By 10 o'clock, it was clear to thousands of us

'who had 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 of 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 the police opening of the double gate.

'What we didn't know back in 1989

'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 results 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 levels.

'The secrets of Hillsborough are 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 has 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 was allowed to happen.

'Before the victims were identified,

'the coroner had ordered blood-alcohol tests on them all.

'Including children.

'False allegations of drunkenness would be used again and again.

'The morning after.

'The Prime Minister arrives to be briefed by officers, including

'Chief Superintendent Duckenfield, the man who lied about the gate.

'She was told a tanked-up mob had charged onto the terraces.

'Chief Constable Wright

'was privately calling the Liverpool fans animalistic.'

We shall find all the facts through an inquiry

and you mustn't make any judgement on partial facts.

'That weekend, South Yorkshire Police

'were developing plans to defend themselves.

'Senior officers were then 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,

who was Chief Inspector Norman Bettison, I was working with.

He said he was keen for us to go to a briefing.

This was 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're almost indelibly stamped on my memory -

"We are 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 show that this is the case."

CROWD ROAR

'It was a message that could stick.

'In the 1980s, there was regular violence among football crowds.

CROWD CHANT

'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 have got great big police horses there,

and I don't know about you but they frighten me to death, and they're

diving under the belly and between its 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 have 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 are 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,

"we 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 will see and will 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 reasonable

looking back at it over a distance of time is a different story.

'The week after the disaster,

'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

prosecution but the police witnesses, to write their own statements.

The ordinary officers on the ground, basically.

That's right, yeah. 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 for it

because he is dead.

But that was his responsibility at the time.

And here is a man who's going to become the Lord Chief Justice.

I mean, it is not for you or I to query that, I would suggest.

'South Yorkshire Police officers on duty that day were

'instructed not to make witness statements in the usual way.

'Instead, they were told

'to write down their recollections on plain paper.'

There is absolutely no reason at all

why all those police officers shouldn't have been told,

"Write witness statements in the conventional way," about this.

In the same way that all the Liverpool supporters who were

interviewed by the West Midlands Police did.

'The police officers' first accounts were then vetted

'and many were altered and edited by senior officers before being signed.

'PC Brian Huckstepp had originally written...'

"It might possibly have been better to direct the fans

"into the flank areas, which I saw were by no means full."

'That was cut out.

'PC Andrew Brookes had a question.'

"Why were the sliding doors at the back of the tunnel not

"closed at 2:45 when those sections of the ground were full?"

'That went.

'Critical comments were deleted from no fewer than 116 police statements.

'The process was to contaminate all future legal proceedings.'

There was a clear pattern right from the outset that any

criticisms of senior officers,

any criticisms of the policing operation

were removed in their entirety.

Any criticisms of the fans were left in.

'PC Ray Powell had expressed concerns at how few police

'he had seen at the turnstiles outside Leppings Lane.'

"The first thing I said was,

"Where are all the bobbies? There's hardly anybody there.

"There was usually a large police presence on this part of the ground,

"usually forming some sort of cordon."

'That and more was erased.'

You didn't realise what they had done.

No, as such. I...

I wasn't aware of what they had taken out because you basically

trust your prosecution services or your legal advice or whatever.

You know, I browsed through my statement. The contents were there.

Nothing was added that I didn't disagree with.

And I therefore signed the statement.

What do you think now?

In hindsight,

the statements...

..should have been left intact.

'The amended statements were sent to the West Midlands force who

'were investigating the South Yorkshire Police.

'They knew they had been altered, but didn't know how much.

'And didn't ask.'

There was a degree of trust in this. Was that naive or not?

I think it was a perfectly natural reaction that you could trust

the force, even if it hurt them, to come forward with the truth

and not to expect what is now being suggested that there was a huge,

if not conspiracy, certainly attempt to move the whole evidence

away from South Yorkshire and load it on to the fans.

But the point is, shouldn't a police officer worth his salt

investigating another police force have found out what was going on?

I think you're looking at it

with the wisdom of 20/20 hindsight, aren't you?

'A month after the disaster,

'Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry began in Sheffield.

'Chief Inspector Norman Bettison ran a liaison team,

'briefing South Yorkshire Police witnesses.

'But the judge wasn't convinced by some police evidence.

'Particularly from the most senior officers.'

NEWSREADER: The official inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster says

that police and Sheffield Wednesday Football Club must shoulder

most of the blame for the tragedy.

'Lord Justice Taylor's report was damning.

'He found that the main cause of the disaster was overcrowding

'and the main reason for that was a failure of police control.

'Failing to block off the tunnel after opening gate C had been,

' "a blunder of the first magnitude." '

My reaction was that I cried.

I'd heard so much about

drunken hooligans and

I tried to defend my son.

He wasn't like that.

So I just thought, "Well, perhaps it'll all end now.

"Perhaps they'd stop."

But, of course, they didn't.

'Prosecutions of senior police officers were expected to follow.

'At this crucial point, South Yorkshire Police produced

'an allegation with the potential to destroy any case against them.

'It came from this first visit to the Hillsborough stadium,

'three days on from the disaster,

'by Lord Justice Taylor and Chief Constable Dear.

'Their driver was a PC from South Yorkshire.

'He told colleagues he had heard that the two in his car agreeing,

'right at the start, about blaming his force for what had happened.

'We have identified that driver.

'He is former constable Mark Lewis, seen here on traffic duty in 1990.

'About this time, senior officers began hearing

'rumours about a conversation he had overheard a year earlier.'

Mark Lewis has told Panorama that

while he felt at the time what he had heard was inappropriate,

he didn't think it was worth taking any further.

But then, a full year on, it was suggested he go

and talk to his boss, Norman Bettison.

'After speaking to the recently promoted Superintendent Bettison,

'Constable Lewis felt it, "Only right the record be put straight."

'He made an official report.

'Mark Lewis alleged Lord Justice Taylor had said...'

"I suppose you realise that to give this inquiry any credibility

"we have to apportion the majority of the blame on the police?"

'Chief Constable Dear allegedly replied...'

"I suppose we do."

'A year later, that overheard conversation had become

'a serious allegation.

'It landed on the desk of South Yorkshire's new chief constable,

'Richard Wells, who just replaced the recently retired Peter Wright.'

How many times in your career have you seen a Law Lord

and a chief constable accused of conspiring together?

One. This case. And that's why I reacted so seriously to it.

It didn't cross your mind that the police in South Yorkshire,

under pressure, may be up to something here?

No, it didn't. No, it really didn't. No.

The thought was, "This is a significant allegation, which

"needs looking into and I am not the person to look into this."

'Chief Constable Wells sent the allegation to

'the Director of Public Prosecutions just as he was deciding

'whether to prosecute, following the Taylor Report.

'Now the DPP had a serious allegation

'against the judge himself.

'Lord Justice Taylor and Geoffrey Dear were interviewed.'

What was Lord Taylor's response?

As he told me, his response was one word and pretty colourful.

As was mine.

The suggestion that two people,

one a chief constable of the biggest police force in the UK

outside London,

the other the man that's shortly to become Lord Chief Justice,

who had never met before, get into a car

and, in front of a witness, say they're going to cook the books

is utterly ridiculous and, actually, very annoying.

'Mark Lewis declined to take part in this programme.

'He told us he stands by his statement.

'But the DPP decided it wouldn't, in any event, have been

'grounds for action against Lord Justice Taylor

'and Geoffrey Dear.

'Six weeks later,

'the DPP made a much bigger decision on Hillsborough.'

NEWSREADER: The Director of Public Prosecutions

has decided not to bring any criminal charges against

the police or officials

in connection with the Hillsborough football stadium disaster.

'Chief Superintendent Duckenfield was allowed to retire

'on medical grounds.

'Neither he nor anyone else would be prosecuted for their part

'in causing the disaster at Hillsborough.'

Allowing those extra 2,000 people

into those already overcrowded pens, for me,

that is gross negligence.

So how on earth prosecutions didn't follow from that, I'll never know.

'The Hillsborough cover-up went wider than the police.

'If, like me, you had been there, you would have seen the chaos,

'the lack of a proper emergency response.

'But those who pointed it out would find themselves ignored or

'disbelieved or slapped down.

'Liverpool fan Dr John Ashton was one of them.

'The morning after the disaster, he went on television.'

The whole thing, from beginning to end, had incompetence

running right through it, the organisational arrangements.

And I think that it is time we started to ask

questions about accountability.

Thank you very much for joining us, Dr Ashton,

on a very distressing morning.

'Dr Ashton was an inconvenient witness -

'a qualified doctor who would be taken seriously.

'Behind the scenes, he says, attempts were made to shut him up.

'In public, at the Taylor Inquiry, his reputation was attacked.'

'Lord Justice Taylor asked me, when I went back to Liverpool,'

did the media contact me or did I contact the media?

The implication of that was that I was seeking publicity for myself.

'Lord Justice Taylor tried to imply that I wasn't a proper doctor,

'I was a public health doctor,'

I didn't see patients, didn't know what I was talking about.

'Lord Justice Taylor's report damned police failings

'but praised the other emergency services.

'Yet there were claims the ambulance service

'had almost completely failed to provide emergency treatment.

'An inquest should have been the best chance of finding the truth.

'But the coroner, Stefan Popper, made a decision which would leave

'the performance of the emergency services largely unquestioned.

'He accepted medical opinion that all who died that day

'were beyond help by 3:15.

'But could lives have been saved?'

They weren't all pulled out of the pens dead.

So what then happens is...

nobody kills them after that

but what can kill them

is the failure to actually

address their injuries quickly and appropriately.

'The mother of one young victim always maintained her son,

'15-year-old Kevin Williams,

'was alive well after the coroner's 3:15 cut-off.'

He imposed the 3:15 cut-off point

because when the surge came,

it was meant to have took them all.

You know, passed out within a minute,

dead and brain dead within so many minutes.

So he said, by 3:15, they would all be dead.

And it didn't matter what time any medical people arrived.

'West Midlands Police were assisting the coroner.

'They had all the pictures we are now looking at.

'And they showed Kevin Williams wasn't pulled out of gate three

'until long after 3:15, at 3:28.

'Kevin was laid on the pitch,

'police officers immediately trying to revive him.

'Soon after, Kevin was carried across the pitch.

'And there is a photograph, taken after 3:30.

'But was he alive?'

I remember shouting to everyone to pick him up

and get down there with him.

You know, you're looking at people everywhere and you're thinking,

obviously, my instinct was, "This lad needs help."

I have seen people dead before and I know that there would have

been a colour change.

His colour looked OK.

He was pale but, you know, I could see that he was alive.

'The West Midlands Police also had a photograph of an off-duty

'Merseyside policeman, Derek Bruder, trying to resuscitate Kevin.'

He told me what he had done for Kevin

and I said, "Was my son alive?"

He said, "Well, if you say finding

"a pulse with the first two fingers..."

And he lifted his hand up like that.

"..with your right hand, if that means he was alive

"then he was alive."

'But this photograph wasn't timed

'and PC Bruder couldn't be certain when it was taken.

'What he did remember was an ambulance

'arrived at the ground as he tried to save Kevin's life.

'Derek Bruder wasn't called to give evidence at the inquest.

'Instead, his evidence was outlined to the coroner

'by a West Midlands Police officer.

'He only mentioned two ambulances coming onto the pitch.

'And he said both of them

'had arrived before Kevin Williams was carried across the ground.

'This seemed to undermine PC Bruder's entire account.'

There were a number of anomalies in his evidence,

including a problem with the entry and exit of the ambulances.

It didn't quite tie in.

Nobody has actually picked that point up

but there is a difficulty

with his evidence, as far as I remember,

with regard to the timing.

'But there was no problem of timing.

'There weren't two ambulances at Hillsborough, there were three.

'And West Midlands Police knew that.

'They had the third ambulance on video

'and they had taken the pictures to the crew, to Tony Edwards.'

They had a video set up,

they had photographs and they had laid out photographs as well

and it was them who said to me, "I want to show you

"your vehicle coming on the pitch at 3:35."

-And they showed you it was 3:35? They told you?

-Oh, no, absolutely.

They had all the information.

'But that information wasn't given at Kevin Williams' inquest.

'The third ambulance wasn't mentioned at all.

'Now, we can confirm Derek Bruder was right all along.

'We have found footage shot moments after Kevin had been

'carried down the pitch.

'Those nearby see Kevin needs help.

'And then we just see PC Bruder rushing towards Kevin,

'exactly as he described.

'It is after 3:30.

'We can reveal Derek Bruder has now complained

'to the Independent Police Complaints Commission

'about the way his evidence was dealt with.'

NEWSREADER: Long before the families arrived for this,

the final day of Britain's longest inquest,

it was clear that there was going to be an emotional conclusion.

'The Hillsborough inquest came to an end in March 1991.

'The verdict on all of the victims was the same - accidental death.

'The Hillsborough families were shattered.'

We will continue.

We, fortunately, have had a lot of sympathy from the nation.

It is an uphill struggle, as you can appreciate.

We have had to take on every part of the establishment.

I was utterly devastated. I really thought we stood a chance.

I thought maybe we would get somewhere.

But... And I was absolutely... It was despair for me.

'Anne Williams never collected her son's death certificate.

'She always refused to accept the verdict of accidental death.'

They used to say, "You're right, Anne.

"But you'll not beat the system."

And I used to say, "Well..." And they'd say,

"They're wearing you down." And I can always remember saying,

"Well, I'll wear them down before they wear me down."

'Despite all the inquiries,

'the truth about Hillsborough remained buried.'

I think, at that point, there was a sort of consensus

in the English legal system that,

"That's your lot, Liverpool families.

"You have had three very powerful inquiries here,

"you've had the Taylor Inquiry,

"you've had a year's long investigation by the DPP,

"you've had the longest inquest in criminal history.

"That's your lot. Time to put those papers away and let's move on."

'The Liverpool families wouldn't move on.

'They had been let down by the law, now they turned to politicians.

'After the Labour election victory in 1997, over 40 of them

'travelled from Merseyside to meet the new Home Secretary.

'He made a promise.'

We owe it to everyone touched by this tragedy

and, above all, to the families of those who died

to get to the bottom of this matter once and for all.

Hear, hear.

'Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, saw no need for a new inquiry

'but he believed that wouldn't be publicly acceptable

'unless it came from an independent source.

'So Mr Straw proposed a limited review

'of any fresh evidence by a judge.

'In what he now says was a purely factual query,

'the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, asked,

' "Why? What's the point?" '

The documents reveal that neither the Home Secretary, Jack Straw,

nor the Prime Minister thought anything would come out of it

and that they didn't really expect the inquiry to produce

anything other than that which had already been

produced by inquiries which had produced nothing.

-There's a bit of hypocrisy there, isn't there?

-Yes, I think there was.

-How does that make you feel?

-Bad.

'Jack Straw appointed Lord Justice Stuart-Smith

'to carry out a scrutiny of the evidence.

'He also told the judge the Home Office had seen nothing

'to justify a full-scale inquiry.'

The families feel

you marked Stuart-Smith's card from the beginning.

Well, that's not the marking his card,

that's just telling the chap the truth and explaining to him

why I wasn't establishing a full-blown inquiry.

There was no secret about this.

You tell him your view in advance. You tell him, "Well, look..."

I wasn't telling him my view in advance,

I was asking him to conduct an inquiry.

But I was telling him of the scepticism of officials.

'So, eight years after Hillsborough,

'South Yorkshire Police were again in the spotlight.

'Many of their officers who had been there had been badly affected.

'Inspector Clive Calvert was one of them.'

I picked him up and, as far as I remember,

he cried on the way back.

I do remember him coming in, sitting in the chair, he had a drink

but he went to bed very early and he didn't talk about it.

He looked absolutely devastated.

'In preparation for the Stuart-Smith scrutiny, Inspector Calvert

'was asked to brief his chief constable at the ground.

'The inspector took the chance to speak out.

'He said he had worried for years that police witnesses to

'the Taylor Inquiry had been coached and officers' statements altered.'

Inspector Clive Calvert said very clearly that he

felt that there has been an element about the changing of statements

which had not been as innocent

as I had believed to have been.

'Inspector Calvert retired after 38 years' service

'and has since died.

'Breaking ranks on Hillsborough had been difficult.'

He did say to me, "I've had a word with the chief constable."

And he also said, "I think that'll be the end of my career.

"I don't think I'll go any further with the police."

Something to that effect.

After investigating Inspector Calvert's concerns, an assistant

chief constable from South Yorkshire reported to Judge Stuart-Smith.

He said Clive Calvert had been wrong about police witnesses being

coached and he had misunderstood the process around which

statements had been taken.

Inspector Calvert, he said, had been naive.

I can't explain that.

It's not something that I would immediately agree

with either saying or doing.

He was an experienced inspector, both operationally and in football.

-Mr Calvert?

-Yes. Absolutely.

-He wasn't naive?

As you put that to me, I can't understand why it was said.

He had never been described as naive before.

In fact, he had always been described as a very astute man

with a great deal of integrity.

So for that letter to say that is quite upsetting for the family

and, to be honest, ridiculous.

'When he published his report in February 1998,

'Lord Justice Stuart-Smith ruled that altering police

'statements did not amount to irregularity and malpractice.

'The Home Secretary agreed.'

The overall conclusion which Lord Justice Stuart-Smith reaches is

that there is no basis on which there should be a further public inquiry.

Les and I did everything that was expected of us.

We played their game.

We put in police complaints,

we wrote to the coroner,

we asked him questions,

we did a judicial review, it was all nice,

we wrote to all the prime ministers and, at the end of the day,

it got us nowhere.

'Yet again, the truth about Hillsborough was buried.'

You describe it as a thorough inquiry.

You were entirely satisfied with his conclusions.

Yes, and I thought it was a thorough inquiry

and that I was satisfied with his conclusions. You learn.

If I had known then what I know now,

I would have come to different conclusions but I didn't.

You could have known then, couldn't you? If you had looked harder.

I might have been able to.

It is a matter of great regret that I didn't look harder

and I'm sorry that I got it wrong.

And I can't turn the clock back.

'That makes me so sad because that's another 14 years'

of my life

that I have been made to look for the truth

when it was already there.

I mean, that is a national disgrace.

'The 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster was

'marked by a memorial service at Anfield. It was a turning point.

'The culture secretary Andy Burnham came to express

'the Government's sympathy.'

We can at least pledge that 96 fellow football supporters who died

will never be forgotten.

'The crowd of 30,000 made it clear that was no longer enough.'

CHANTING: Justice for the 96.

'Under pressure, the minister made a big commitment -

'the Government would break the rule that official documents

'have to remain secret for 30 years.'

People kind of thought, "Is this possible?"

I didn't think it was possible but I think that he knew that

whether he was bouncing his Government into it or it was

done with agreement, his Government was going to have to respond to this.

'The Hillsborough families had lost confidence

'in government and the law.

'They insisted on choosing people they could trust to

'look at the official records.

'By the time the independent panel published their report last

'September, it was a new government that finally said sorry.'

# You'll never walk alone. #

-DAVID CAMERON:

-These families have suffered a double injustice.

The injustice of the appalling events,

the failure of the state to protect their loved ones

and their indefensible wait to get to the truth

and then the injustice of the denigration of the deceased,

that they were somehow at fault for their own deaths.

'The Hillsborough report showed the 3:15 cut-off

'imposed by the coroner was wrong.

'An analysis of medical evidence revealed that,

'given proper treatment,

'more than half the 96 who died

'might have had a chance of survival.'

My son and 95 innocent Liverpool fans did not die in an accident,

they were unlawfully killed at the least.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

'In December, the accidental death verdicts were overturned

'and the High Court ordered a new inquest.

'The original coroner Stefan Popper told Panorama it was not

'appropriate for him to comment.

'Anne Williams was now gravely ill.'

-You might not see the end of this now.

-No.

-But you have won your victory.

-That's what I thought.

My son did not die in an accident

and neither did 95 with him.

So at least we have got rid of that.

Cos the accidental death verdicts used to really, really upset me

cos it let them off the hook, didn't it?

'Anne Williams died last month.'

'Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust

'wouldn't be interviewed by Panorama.

'They say they will cooperate with any new legal inquiries.'

My involvement in Hillsborough has always been a torture.

It has been life changing and

'I always find these interviews difficult.

'I feel they are necessary so we get the true story out.'

And I'm unshakeable on that.

I know what the situation was,

how we dealt with this badly.

'There are two new investigations into Hillsborough.

'One into who might have caused the disaster,

'the other into allegations of a police cover-up.

'Both South Yorkshire and West Midlands Police say

'they will cooperate with these inquiries.'

'The match commander David Duckenfield declined to be

'interviewed by Panorama while the new investigations were going on.

'Sir Norman Bettison became chief constable of Merseyside

'and then of West Yorkshire.

'He resigned last year, saying the Hillsborough investigation

'had become a distraction.

'He declined to be interviewed.

'For the Hillsborough families, it is not over yet.'

People don't want to be fighting this cause any more,

nearly 24 years later. It's taken its toll on a lot of families.

A lot of people aren't here any more to see it through to the end.

If people are proved ultimately responsible,

I'd like to see them charged with it.

Cos everyone else in the country is subject to the law

and they should be as well.

-Do you think that's going to happen?

-No.

'Hillsborough was an avoidable disaster.

'What happened here was obvious.

'But some of our most important institutions - the police,

'the judiciary and government - allowed it to be covered up.

'That's the truth about Hillsborough -

'a dark truth buried for a generation.'

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