Soccer hell police chief ‘is unfairly singled out’
HILLSBOROUGH match commander David Duckenfield has been unfairly “singled out” over the disaster, his lawyer told a jury yesterday.
Benjamin Myers QC said his client “was not equipped with special powers to anticipate” the 96 Liverpool fans’ deaths.
Former South Yorkshire Police Chief Superintendent Duckenfield is on trial for overseeing the tragedy at the FA Cup semi-final in Sheffield on April 15, 1989.
Duckenfield, 74, denies the gross-negligence manslaughter of 95 fans.
Tony Bland, the 96th, died in 1993.
In his opening speech at Preston Crown Court, Mr Myers said Duckenfield “did his best in very difficult circumstances”.
He said: “It is not fair to single him out – he was put in a position of being the match commander fewer than three weeks before the match with no previous experience. He was not equipped with special powers to anticipate things that everyone else did not.”
Crush
Victims’ families watched Mr Myers’s speech from the public gallery, including Jackie Gilhooley, whose son Jon-Paul, 10, was the youngest Hillsborough victim.
Earlier, prosecutor Richard Matthews QC completed his three-day trial opening.
The jury was told three requests were made by Supt Roger Marshall for exit gates to be opened to relieve the crush outside.
Mr Matthews said Supt Marshall warned that fans would be killed if the gates were not opened, to which Duckenfield responded: “If people are going to get killed, open the gates.”
But Mr Matthews said Duckenfield crucially failed to tell officers to direct fans to emptier sections.
Duckenfield, of Bournemouth, is on trial alongside ex-Sheffield Wednesday club secretary Graham Mackrell, 69, who denies safety breaches.
The case continues.