On 15 April 2025, the 36th anniversary of Britain’s worst sporting tragedy, the Hillsborough Disaster, was meant to have been preceded by the passage of a ‘Hillsborough Law’, as promised by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in his first King’s Speech on 17 July 2024. To the dismay of campaigners this has not yet happened, prompting allegations of “broken promises” by the Labour government.
Hillsborough Stadium, the home ground of Sheffield Wednesday FC in Owlerton (northwest Sheffield), was the venue for an FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on Saturday, 15 April 1989. Despite an earlier crowd-crush incident during the 1981 semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers, the ground had been chosen to host the 1987 semi-final between Coventry City and Leeds United, after introducing a “penning system” as recommended by South Yorkshire Police, and again in 1988, also between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
The afternoon kick-off for the 1989 semi-final was scheduled for 15:00. Supporters began arriving from midday onwards. Liverpool fans passed through one of seven turnstiles to the smaller Leppings Lane end of the stadium, where 10,100 standing tickets had been issued for the terrace, which was divided into pens by high fences. By 14:15 crowds were building up outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles. The area rapidly became congested. At 14:52 an adjoining exit gate, Gate C, was opened to let fans in, who then crowded through a tunnel leading to the central pens. Despite the developing chaos, the match kicked off at 14:59, as planned.
Many things went wrong on the day. The police failed to control the crowds at the turnstiles and ensure their orderly passage into the stadium. The kick-off could have been delayed but wasn’t. South Yorkshire Police failed to confirm a major incident. A “fleet of ambulances” was requested at 15:06, but only two ambulances could reach the Leppings Lane end, as access was delayed on the grounds of “crowd trouble” and what was thought to be a pitch invasion. The South Yorkshire Ambulance Service waited until 15:22 to finally declare a major incident. Ninety-five Liverpool fans were killed in the ensuing crush at Hillsborough. A 96th victim died in 1993, followed by a 97th in 2021. Over seven hundred people were injured. The match was meanwhile abandoned, to be replayed at Old Trafford in Manchester on 7 May 1989. Liverpool went on to win the rematch as well as the FA Cup Final.
Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield was in overall charge at Hillsborough as Match Commander for South Yorkshire Police. The police were to be subsequently accused of a cover-up and for deflecting blame for their own shortcomings on the alleged misbehaviour of Liverpool fans, even going to the extent of checking victims for criminal records on the national police computer.
In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, The Sun, under the editorship of Kelvin MacKenzie published a front-page story headlined “The Truth” on 19 April 1989, blaming disorderly Liverpool supporters for the tragedy. This act may have delayed the revelation of what really happened at Hillsborough and most certainly saw a decline in The Sun’s popularity on Merseyside. MacKenzie finally apologised in April 2016 for the tabloid’s reporting, blaming police misinformation.
Lord Justice Taylor conducted the Hillsborough Disaster Inquiry, which sat for 31 days between 15 May and 29 June 1990. An interim report was published in August 1989, followed by the final report in January 1990. The Taylor Report acknowledged a breakdown of police control and went onto make 76 recommendations, many of which led to the restructuring of major football stadiums in England and Scotland. Standing-only terraces were removed, and all ticketed spectators were allocated seats. The sale of alcohol in stadiums was banned, and crush barriers and perimeter fences were dismantled. Some older stadiums were closed, to make way for safer and more up-to-date replacements.
The original inquest, conducted by Dr Stefan Popper, Coroner for South Yorkshire West, in 1991, concluded that lives could not have been saved after 15:15, as victims had either died or sustained unsurvivable injuries by then. Events after this time were thus not examined, and a verdict of accidental death was returned. Dr. Popper seems to have considered alcohol a major factor in the disaster, asking for blood alcohol levels to obtained from all those who had died.
The Hillsborough Independent Panel was set up in 2009 and chaired by James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool. The panel reported in 2012, quashing the verdicts of the original inquest. A month after its publication, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (now the Independent Office for Police Conduct, IOPC) responded to the report by launching an independent investigation into alleged misconduct by South Yorkshire Police, who policed the match, and West Midlands Police, who conducted the original investigation. Operation Resolve was launched in October 2012, closing on 31 March 2022. Twelve years after the investigation began, the IOPC concluded that Duckenfield and three other senior police officers were culpable of gross misconduct, but were cleared them of accusations of “inaccurate, false or deliberately misleading evidence” or of criticising fans’ behaviour.
Operation Resolve’s investigation, at a cost of £65 million, led to criminal charges being brought against six people. They included Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, Graham Mackrell (secretary and safety officer, Sheffield Wednesday FC), Peter Metcalf (solicitor for South Yorkshire Police during the Taylor Inquiry and first inquest), former Chief Superintendent Donald Denton, former DCI Alan Foster, and former Chief Inspector Sir Norman Bettison, who had attended the match as a private citizen. The case against Bettison was dropped in 2018, while Duckenfield was acquitted in 2019. The trial of Denton, Metcalf, and Foster collapsed in 2021. No one has been prosecuted under criminal law for their role in the Hillsborough Disaster. Mackrell was, however, found guilty under health and safety legislation for failing to ensure that there were enough turnstiles at Hillsborough on the day of the disaster.
A nine-member inquest jury at Warrington, which opened on 31 March 2014 before Coroner Sir John Goldring, concluded on 26 April 2016 that the 96 Liverpool FC supporters who lost their lives at Hillsborough until then had been “unlawfully killed.” The inquest ran over 279 days, making it the longest in English legal history. Chief Superintendent Duckenfield was found to be “responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence.” The victims had been killed by traumatic compression asphyxia, and many could have survived, given timely resuscitation.
For years, relatives and friends of the Hillsborough victims have campaigned tirelessly for justice, seeking redress of their concerns. The Hillsborough Family Support Group, Hillsborough Justice Campaign, Hope for Hillsborough, and the Women of Hillsborough have all been prominent in this struggle. Their hopes for a Hillsborough Law have yet to materialise, despite the Labour Party’s pledge to pass such a bill by 15 April 2025. The original attempt for such a law was made in 2017, but Labour MP Andy Burnham’s private- member bill, the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, failed to progress through parliament. The proposed legislation, as and when it goes ahead, is meant to place a statutory duty of candour on public servants, authorities, and corporations during all forms of public inquests and inquiries and to provide publicly funded legal representation for victims of disasters and the failings of the state. These measures were denied the Hillsborough campaigners, who faced many obstacles on the way to exposing the truth. Whatever may happen, it seems clear that they, as well as those seeking justice for the victims of the Windrush, Infected Blood, Post Office, Grenfell, and COVID-19 scandals, are not prepared to accept a “watered-down” version of the Hillsborough Law.
Ashis Banerjee