Force blamed fans to avoid responsibility for tragedy

Police altered more than 150 statements to shift the blame onto the victims of the Hillsborough disaster while attempting to divert responsibility for the tragedy, a report has concluded.

The Hillsborough Independent Panel published its report last week after sifting through thousands of previously unseen documents in relation to the April 1989 disaster where 96 people died during a football match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

The report revealed that 164 police statements were altered, 116 of them to remove or alter unfavourable comments about the policing of the match and the unfolding disaster. It concluded that South Yorkshire Police tried to avoid the blame for events on the day by alleging drunkenness, ticketlessness and violence among a large number of Liverpool fans.

It also said 41 of the 96 lives lost at Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium could have been saved had the emergency services responded more effectively.

South Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service altered 54 of the 101 statements produced by its own staff and that officers were told not to write anything which would “give rise to the assumption that complete control had been lost on the ground”.

The report also said that West Midlands Police, which investigated South Yorkshire Police officers’ conduct in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, accepted the way the statements were being dealt with.

It said that a senior West Midlands Police officer at the time accepted the way that South Yorkshire Police was dealing with the statements which were often written on plain pieces of paper instead of the usual Criminal Justice Act forms, on the grounds that they were not required for the purpose of any criminal investigation.

West Midlands Police Assistant Chief Constable Gareth Cann said the force supported the independent panel`s disclosure of information and that it will “consider and review the content of the Independent Panel’s report.”

Representatives have called for the chief constable of West Yorkshire Police to resign after it emerged he is the most senior officer still serving in the police involved in events in 1989. Sir Norman Bettison, an off-duty chief inspector attending the match on the day of the disaster, helped carry out the police investigation into the deaths.

He said: “I never altered a statement nor asked for one to be altered. Two South Yorkshire Police teams have been conflated in the minds of some commentators.”

He added: “I really welcome the disclosure of all the facts that can be known about the Hillsborough tragedy because I have absolutely nothing to hide. I read the 395-page report from cover to cover last night and that remains my position. The panel, in my view, has produced a piece of work that will stand the test of time and scrutiny.”