IPCC: ‘No cover up’ of Bradford stadium fire but records should be made public

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has found no evidence the officers who responded to the 1985 Bradford City fire disaster committed misconduct. Fifty-six people died and hundreds more were injured when Bradford City FC’s Valley Parade stadium caught ablaze on May 11, 1985. Following calls for a fresh inquiry in 2015 by survivor Martin Fletcher, who lost four family members in the tragedy, West Yorkshire Police (WYP) referred itself for assessment. However, the IPCC announced on Thursday (January 26) that while there were issues with the force’s actions during the incident, none related to misconduct and there will be no investigation. It also denied that there was any evidence of a ‘cover-up’ in the fire’s aftermath. IPCC Deputy Chair Sarah Green described the disaster as a “horrific tragedy” and said her decision “was not taken lightly”. “The IPCC’s role in relation to such tragic events is to examine whether there is evidence to suggest the actions of individual police officers potentially amounted to misconduct, criminality, performance issues, or whether there are any organisational lessons to be learnt,” she said. “It is possible, with hindsight, to identify things that the police could have done differently, but I do not consider that there is an indication that any individual officer may have breached the professional standards applicable at the time. “Significant learning was rightly identified at the time of the disaster, and formed part of the evaluation towards the modern day approach to policing large events.” The IPCC has since recommended that WYP make more of its records on the initial investigation into the fire available to the public. A previous inquiry determined that the fire started after a lit cigarette was dropped into piles of rubbish that had built up beneath the mostly-wooden stadium’s seats. The inquiry found that Bradford City had been warned about the risk caused by discarded litter, adding that the ground had been condemned as unsafe. However, in a book titled 56: The Story of the Bradford Fire, Mr Fletcher criticised WYP’s initial investigation as being “woefully inadequate”. Mr Fletcher linked the blaze to a string of other serious fires at properties owned by then club chairman Stafford Heginbotham, adding that the force did not investigate the possibility that the Bradford City incident was arson. The IPCC responded that the officers may have been unaware of these incidents. In particular, Mr Fletcher criticised the force’s actions in ordering the evacuation of a block of seating, where most of the victims died, and claimed WYP took too long to call ambulance and fire support. He also alleged that statements taken after the fire were altered to mask police failings. WYP accepted at the time that there was no evacuation plan, that officers had not been trained in effective evacuation and that issues with the radios sometimes made communication with the control room impossible. However, the IPCC found the force did not delay calling for fire or ambulance support, and that the emergency services did not collaborate to forge call logs. Responding to the verdict, WYP Assistant Chief Constable Russ Foster said: “Despite the passage of time, the terrible events of 11 May 1985 will never be forgotten by those who lost someone or were injured themselves, or by the wider community of Bradford.”