No verdict in trial over Hillsborough
THE Hillsborough jury has failed to reach a verdict in the manslaughter case of match commander David Duckenfield, who is set to challenge the prosecution’s attempt at a retrial.
Mr Duckenfield, 74, was charged with gross negligence manslaughter in connection with the disaster, which claimed 96 lives and led to a 30-year campaign for justice by relatives of the victims.
He was match-day commander for Liverpool’s FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest on April 15, 1989, when fans were caught in a fatal crush on the Leppings Lane end terraces.
The jury deliberated for 29 hours over the charge relating to the deaths of 95 Liverpool supporters. Under law at the time, there can be no prosecution for the death of the 96th victim, Tony Bland, as he died more than a year and a day after suffering his injuries.
Jurors were discharged from Preston Crown Court yesterday, two days after the judge had said he would accept a 10-2 majority verdict because they could not reach a unanimous decsion.
The CPS confirmed it would seek a retrial, but lawyers for Mr Duckenfield said they would apply for a stay of proceedings to prevent another hearing.
Mr Duckenfield did not give evi- dence at court and his QC, Ben Myers, argued that it was “wrong and unfair” that he should personally be blamed for the catalogue of failings.
The disaster was already an inevitability “by virtue of bad stadium design, bad planning, some aspects of crowd behaviour, some aspects of police behaviour, mistakes by various individuals and genuine human error”, Mr Myers had argued.
“This or something like this was going to happen sooner or later,” the barrister said of the disaster.
At the same hearing, Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell, 69, of Stocking Pelham, Hertfordshire, was found guilty of failing to discharge his duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act, by a 10-2 majority. He will be sentenced on May 13.
But it was the trial of Mr Duckenfield – the man in overall charge of match -day security – that had been billed as the crescendo of the longest and most complex series of legal hearings in British history. His prosecution had been demanded for decades by relatives and supporters of Liverpool FC.
A separate case surrounding the alleged cover-up that followed the disaster will be heard later this year.
During a 10-week trial, lead Crown barrister Richard Matthews QC told the jury of six men and six women that there should have been “nothing extraordinary” about the fixture, a re-run of a match between the same teams the previous season. Instead, however, he said “there was an extraordinary series of collective and personal failures on the part of very many, if not all, of those who were responsible for the planning, organisation and management of the arrival, entry and accommodation of the 50,000 fans at the Hillsborough Stadium”.
Mr Duckenfield, from Bournemouth, had accepted responsibility for his role in the deaths and admitted at the inquests that he had lied to the FA by saying that Liverpool fans were to blame after gaining unauthorised entry through an exit gate. The former South Yorkshire Police chief had in fact himself ordered the gate to be opened, to relieve a crush in the bottleneck approach to the Leppings Lane turnstiles.
Much of the trial was fought on technicalities surrounding his duty of care.