Concern over jurors could see trials moved to London

SUCH is the emotion surrounding the Hillsborough disaster, that any trials are likely to be moved from the north of England to London.

The courts will be keen to ensure that any potential jurors do not have any direct association with the 96 victims who lost their lives or South Yorkshire Police, which was responsible for the investigation.

Five of those charged will appear before Warrington Magistrates’ Court, the town where the inquests were heard, on August 9.

But former Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, who is facing charges of gross negligence manslaughter, will not appear with them as there remains a legal hurdle to the case that the prosecution will need to overcome.

Because Mr Duckenfield was the subject of a private prosecution in 2000 relating to Hillsborough, in which the jury failed to reach a verdict, he was given a stay of prosecution and told he would not be charged with the same offences again.

The Crown Prosecution Service will now have to apply to the High Court to lift that stay and no date has yet been set for that hearing.

The charges he faces carry a maximum life sentence on conviction.

Gross negligence manslaughter is a form of involuntary manslaughter in which the offender did not intend to kill or cause serious harm. Instead the death resulted from gross negligence.

In the event of a trial, a jury would have to decide whether the deaths at Hillsborough came as a result of gross negligence. The complex law was clarified in a House of Lords ruling in 1994 in the case of R v Adomako.