Duckenfield’s acquittal is not the end of the Hillsborough ordeal
It was as long ago as 1989 that 96 fans were so tragically killed at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium. The police commander then in charge, David Duckenfield, has admitted that he lied when he accused fans of forcing an exit gate to get into the ground when he had himself in fact given the order to do so.
The fact is that he should never have been put in command at all. Chief superintendent Brian Mole, who had done the job successfully the year before, was set aside for disciplinary reasons which appeared to derive from “horseplay” among his subordinates.
Duckenfield would be put on trial no fewer than three times, most recently in November, when he was cleared from charges of manslaughter to cries of “stitched up again” from the bereaved.
At the second inquest, in April 2016, the jury ruled that he was responsible for the death of the victims, while in January 2019 a jury failed to reach a verdict on the same charges. There was also a hung jury in 1999 when the families of those that lost their lives brought a private prosecution.
Duckenfield refused to give evidence himself at any of the trials, claiming posttraumatic stress disorder made him an unreliable witness. He has been on antidepressants for the last 27 years.
But it isn’t the end of this horrid affair. Ex chief superintendent Donald Denton, ex detective chief inspector Alan Foster and retired solicitor Peter Metcalf, who acted for South Yorkshire police, will be on trial in April, accused of perverting the cause of justice in relation to the alleged police cover-up after the disaster.
It was reported that the policemen then on duty were urged by their superiors to destroy the notes on the disaster they had made.