The South Yorkshire police officer in charge of the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough in 1989 was responsible for “extraordinarily bad” failures that were “a substantial cause” of 96 people dying in a crush on the Leppings Lane terrace, a court has been told.
Opening the prosecution’s case against David Duckenfield for manslaughter by gross negligence, Richard Matthews QC told the jury: “David Duckenfield’s criminal responsibility for the deaths … flows from his gross failure to discharge his personal responsibility as match commander.”
Matthews told the jury it was the prosecution’s case that all of those killed at Hillsborough died “as a result of participation in the wholly innocent activity of attending a football match as a spectator”.
He said Duckenfield, as the police commander of the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground on 15 April, had “not just ultimate responsibility for the police operation … to secure the safe arrival, entry and accommodation” of 54,000 supporters to the match, “but personal responsibility to take reasonable care for the arrangements that were put in place, to take reasonable care in the command of those beneath him and to take reasonable care in the orders he gave and decisions he took”.
Matthews told the jury that pressure built up at the Leppings Lane end of the Hillsborough ground designated for 24,000 Liverpool supporters, which had “limited turnstiles” for those caught in a “bottleneck”. The large exit Gate C was opened “following requests for Duckenfield to do something to alleviate the crush just outside the gates”, Matthews said, but the people allowed through the gate were “naturally drawn” down a tunnel facing them, into pens three and four, which were “already packed”.
He said Duckenfield did not monitor how crowded those central pens were, and did nothing to direct people away from the tunnel that gave access to them.
“In short … David Duckenfield gave no thought to the inevitable consequence of the flood of people through Gate C, nor did he make any attempt to even monitor what was occurring, let alone avert the tragedy.”
Of Duckenfield’s alleged breach of his duty of care as match commander to manage the safety of the spectators, Matthews said: “This was an extraordinarily bad failure to properly consider the planning, the preparation, the roles, the responsibilities and the command of those who, in the event, were left to cope with the results of what was the ill-considered and poorly arranged, but easily identifiable, arrival of very many thousands of people a relatively short time before the scheduled kick-off, to a confined area of limited access; with the consequent uncontrolled, unsupervised and undirected, almost involuntary, forcing of far too many people into a terribly confined space.”
Duckenfield is charged with manslaughter in relation to only 95 of the people who died. No charge could be brought in relation to the death of the 96th victim, Tony Bland, who was maintained on life support in hospital for four years until it was lawfully withdrawn in 1993.
The names of the 95 people, in order of age from the youngest, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, 10, to the oldest, Gerard Baron, 67, were read out by the court clerk, with the manslaughter charge against Duckenfield. It took five minutes for him to read all the names.
Relatives of some of those who died were sitting in the public seats in court one of Preston crown court as Matthews opened the case for the Crown Prosecution Service against Duckenfield almost 30 years after the event.
Graham Mackrell, the Sheffield Wednesday club secretary and safety officer at the time of the disaster, was sitting beside Duckenfield, in the court rather than the dock, facing two counts of breaching his duties under safety legislation.
Mackrell is accused of failing to agree with police the number of turnstiles to be used for the semi-final, failing to ensure they were sufficient, and to have contingency plans in place to cope if “an unduly large crowd” built up outside.
“It is the prosecution’s case that Mr Mackrell effectively shrugged off all responsibility for these important aspects of the role he had taken on as safety officer,” Matthews said.
Both defendants have pleaded not guilty in pre-trial hearings.