Mother tells of pitch ‘battleground’

Parents saw supporters lying on pitch

COURT: The mother of a Hillsborough victim told a court yesterday that she saw the pitch turn into a “battleground” from the stand above the terraces where the fatal crush happened.

Dolores Steele, whose son Philip was one of the 96 people killed in the crush, gave evidence at the trial of match commander David Duckenfield.

THE mother of a Hillsborough victim told a court yesterday that she saw the pitch turn into a “battleground” from the stand above the terraces where the fatal crush happened.

Dolores Steele, whose 15-yearold son Philip was one of the 96 people killed in the crush at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final, gave evidence at the trial of match commander David Duckenfield and former Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell.

She told Preston Crown Court that she and her husband Les had travelled to the match with Philip and his brother Brian, 13.

The boys, who had tickets for the Leppings Lane terrace, went into the ground and Mr and Mrs Steele followed later to the West Stand, where they could look down on to the terrace.

She told the court she saw the coin toss at the start of the game but then became distracted by what was happening below.

She said: “It just didn’t look right at all, it suddenly looked very crowded down there.

“What I did see was somebody being carried, I don’t know whether they were male or female, but somebody was carried on to the pitch and then I saw a jacket being put over that person’s face.”

Mrs Steele said she could hear the crowd shouting for the gates to be opened as people were dying before an entrance was opened and people were carried out.

“Suddenly the football pitch looked like a battleground – there were so many people out there lying round,” she said. “I saw that first ambulance come along and

by that time it all seemed like it was just slow motion.”

Mrs Steele told the court that she and her husband walked down from the stand and saw Brian standing on a wall in the concourse looking for his brother.

After splitting up to look for Philip, Mr and Mrs Steele were given an emergency number to call by a police officer. The couple found a phone box nearby to make the call but there was a queue of “anxious people trying to get in touch with families”.

Mrs Steele said they went to the house of a “very kind lady” and used her phone to call the emergency number, and added: “We just couldn’t get through on that number and we were at our wits’ end at this time, we just did not know what to do.”

She told the court the woman and her family were “guardian angels” and took Mr and Mrs Steele to Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital. When they were there, she said, a doctor read out descriptions of people from Hillsborough who had been treated at the hospital and had died.

One of the descriptions almost matched Philip, but initials on a signet ring were in a different order from those on the ring he wore. Mrs Steele said she found a nurse, who showed her the bag of possessions and identified it was Philip’s signet ring.

The court heard Mr and Mrs Steele were joined by Brian and taken to a boys’ club, where families had gathered, and then back to the gymnasium at Hillsborough stadium where Mr Steele identified Philip’s body.

A number of statements from supporters who described being in the crush were also heard.

In his account, Timothy Knowles described feeling paralysed from the neck down and unable to breathe.

He said: “I thought this was the end of me, I recall I lost control of my bodily functions. “The fear left me as I began to slip away.”

In her statement, supporter Deborah Routledge said she was crushed against the fence and was only able to take “short gasping breaths”.

The trial continues.

It just didn’t look right at all. It suddenly looked very crowded. Dolores Steele, whose 15-year-old son Philip was killed in the crush, giving evidence.