The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Police chief among six charged over disaster
Prosecutions almost 30 years after deaths of 96 football fans
Families of 96 Hillsborough victims broke into applause as they were told match commander David Duckenfield and five others are to face criminal charges nearly 30 years on from the death of their loved ones.
Duckenfield, 72, along with former chief constable Sir Norman Bettison, 61, two other senior ex-South Yorkshire Police officers, the then force solicitor and the safety boss of Sheffield Wednesday FC, will be prosecuted, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced.
Match commander Duckenfield, a former South Yorkshire Police chief superintendent and officer in charge on the day, faces 95 counts of manslaughter by gross negligence, while Bettison, a chief inspector at the time of the disaster, faces four offences of misconduct in a public office over alleged lies in accounts of his involvement in the 1989 disaster.
The Football Association, South Yorkshire Ambulance Service and Sheffield Wednesday FC and its architects and safety consultants will not be prosecuted, the CPS said.
Ninety-six Liverpool fans were crushed to death in pens at the Leppings Lane end of Hillsborough stadium on April 15 1989, as their FA Cup semi-final cup-tie began against Nottingham Forest.
After decades of campaigning by relatives, an inquest jury last year ruled the victims had been unlawfully killed in a tragedy caused by police blunders, paving the way for prosecutions, after the quashing of original inquest verdicts in 1991 of accidental death.
Along with Duckenfield and Bettison, four others have been charged. Former chief superintendent Donald Denton and former detective chief inspector Alan Foster, both ex-South Yorkshire Police, are charged with intent to pervert the course of justice relating to material changes made to witness statements.
Graham Mackrell, who was Sheffield Wednesday’s company secretary and safety officer at the time, is charged with two offences involving the stadium safety certificate and a health and safety offence, and Peter Metcalf, the solicitor acting for South Yorkshire Police, is charged with doing acts with intent to pervert the course of justice relating to changes made to witness statements.
A date for Duckenfield’s court appearance is yet to be fixed.
The others will appear at Warrington Magistrates’ Court on August 9.