Higher up the terrace, directly behind the failed barrier No. 124A, there was, originally, an additional barrier, No. 144. This barrier was designed to restrain people emerging from the tunnel. In order to move anywhere else across the terrace, the incoming spectator would need to find his or her way around that barrier and others, in the style of a children’s maze. It was an essential safeguard to prevent a crush from occurring further down the terrace, where barrier 124A was placed.
In 1986, the season after the lateral fences had been installed, a police Chief Inspector, who was a regular commander at Hillsborough football matches, asked the club and its consulting engineer to review barrier 144. He had noticed that people entering Pen 3 from the tunnel were reluctant to move from that point of refuge. It gave a good view of the pitch, central behind the goal, and it was closest to the point of exit for refreshments or comfort needs. It was, however, causing what he considered to be a dangerous backing up of the crowd in the tunnel.
One might imagine that the club and its consulting engineers gave their utmost consideration to the concerns expressed and to the consequences of any action, including necessary mitigation. Unfortunately, those considerations are not well recorded and the consulting engineer has since died. The formal record that remains is of a hastily taken decision to simply remove the barrier, leaving no check whatsoever between the tunnel and the fateful barrier No. 124A, which was near the front of the terrace. A thoughtful observer might wonder why so many people who entered the stadium through Exit Gate C immediately before the tragedy ensued were to be found in the list of deceased (almost a quarter of those who died had entered after 2.52 p.m.). Common sense might have suggested a greater risk to those already in place on the terrace when the overcrowding occurred from the rear. The flow of the incoming spectators, unchecked by the absent barrier 144, might offer a possible answer as to why common sense, in this instance, is confounded.
There are a couple of other contextual points that are worth considering in any analysis of the disaster. Firstly, the overall terrace had a safety certificate capacity of 10,100. That is to say that the local authority licensed it as a public entertainment venue with a maximum capacity of 10,100 in that part of the ground. The local authority, however, did not require to be informed as to how the club or the police would ensure that the 10,100 were to be equitably and safely allocated to the seven enclosures. It appears from the records that, whilst that question had been considered by the club and their engineers had drawn up a plan involving separate turnstile entrances, nothing ultimately was done to address that knotty question. Neither by the club nor by the police, nor by any other statutory representative who sat on the safety committee which issued the certificate. The central pens, Nos 3 and 4, were significantly over capacity at the time that the tragedy ensued. There were, however, no more than 10,100 across the terraces as a whole, even when taking into account the numbers who entered, at police invitation, through Exit Gate C.
On the day of the disaster, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, the owners of the Hillsborough Stadium, had responded to a police request to ensure segregation of rival fans by allocating separate ends and separate turnstile entrances. It was the 1980s and an undue emphasis was put, by all authorities, on segregation and the avoidance of hooligan flash points. Hindsight compels us to concede that too little concern was placed on the safety and comfort of the paying customer, the vast majority of whom had neither a tendency nor sympathy towards hooliganism. Hooliganism dominated the agenda of everyone who had a responsibility for football and that provides an uncomfortable context for the disaster that ensued at Hillsborough.
On 15 April 1989, Nottingham fans were allocated the Spion Kop, a huge standing terrace at the east end of the ground with a capacity of 21,000, and the South Stand, a two-tiered all-seater grandstand with a capacity of 8,800. Liverpool fans were allocated the Leppings Lane terrace, with a capacity for 10,100 standing spectators, the West Stand area above those terraces, providing 4,456 seats, as well as the North Stand, which was the most modern part of the stadium infrastructure and had seats for 9,700. Liverpool, who had the largest following of the two competing teams, were therefore afforded 24,256 tickets, whilst Nottingham Forest had 29,800.
This was a cause of some disquiet in the Liverpool camp. Peter Robinson, the Chief Executive of Liverpool FC, asked the Football Association (FA) and Sheffield Wednesday to swap allocations. On consulting the police, Chief Superintendent Brian Mole, the experienced match commander at Hillsborough in charge of pre-event planning, rejected the proposal. His reasoning was that most of the Liverpool fans would arrive from the west and north of the ground, whilst Forest fans had to come from the south and east. For him it was a simple question of what provided the most effective segregation arrangements. The club and FA accepted the logic. After all, as previously discussed, everyone was in thrall to segregation in order to prevent hooligan confrontation.
What everyone should have been more concerned about was the impact that this allocation and segregation would have on turnstile configuration. Hillsborough had eighty-three turnstiles in 1989. Every single one would be needed for an event with a capacity crowd of over 54,000. But, with a myopic focus on segregation at all costs, the club, in full view of the police, divided the number of turnstiles so that Nottingham Forest fans had sixty (72 per cent of the total means of entry), whilst Liverpool fans had only twenty-three (28 per cent). Even worse, all 24,256 Liverpool ticket-holders were required to enter the ground at Leppings Lane, where the twenty-three turnstiles were then further demarcated for entry to the different stands, resulting in only seven turnstiles being made available that day for the 10,100 supporters in possession of terrace standing tickets.
The official flow rate through stadium turnstiles is 750 per hour. The club will have known that from the Green Guide, which represented, in the late ’80s, the bible for safety at sports grounds. The guide was issued by the government to all sporting venues and local authority safety committees. Sheffield Wednesday could also have discovered, from their computerised counting mechanism, the typical flow rates through specific turnstiles.
At 750 per hour, then, the simple mathematics would reveal that Liverpool fans with standing tickets would have to arrive steadily and evenly over at least a two-hour period preceding kick-off if they were to be admitted to the ground safely prior to the start of the match. Of course, like most football fans at the majority of games in that era, they did not arrive steadily and evenly over that timeframe – and why would they?
On the back of their ticket, each spectator was advised to be in their place fifteen minutes before kick-off. With the experience of the previous year, when the same teams played in the corresponding fixture at the same Hillsborough venue, and when the vast majority of spectators got into the ground for the three o’clock kick-off, who could blame any individual spectator for following the advice on their ticket? Coupled to that, it was a sunny spring day. Who would want to stand on a shaded terrace with no pre-match entertainment beyond a self-initiated game of patting a beach ball?
Some fans came later than the ticket advised; some fans – a small percentage of the total – had passed the pre-match period in the pub or drinking al fresco in the spring sunshine on the first warm day of the year. That is not a crime, nor even a cause for censure. It happened a lot at football matches and it might well have been anticipated. The overwhelming majority of Liverpool fans were in the immediate vicinity of the stadium well before 3 p.m. The problem was that the turnstiles couldn’t cope. If Liverpool had been allocated the number of turnstiles commensurate with their total allocation, then the spectators might have been admitted more steadily and evenly before kick-off. As it was, the crowds outside Leppings Lane turnstiles became a critical heaving mass. It was estimated that there were 5,000 people gathered outside twenty-three turnstiles with less than fifteen minutes to go before the kick-off of the most anticipated and gladiatorial game of football to be played that season. Who
wouldn’t be anxious to get in to see it?
Should the kick-off have been postponed? The decision was in the hands of the match commander watching the deteriorating scene on the CCTV screens in match control. What would have been the impact on the crowd outside? What about the even bigger crowd inside, some of whom had been there for over an hour with little more than a beach ball for amusement? To any experienced football match commander the answer should have been yes. Delay the kick-off, try to explain the situation to all the anxious football fans outside and explain it over the public address system to those already in their seats and places.
There would of course be brickbats from terrace critics. Visiting fans used to packed houses every Saturday at Anfield and Nottingham Forest’s City Ground would compare Sheffield to Toytown – a Noddy club employing a Mr Plod clearly struggling with their duties. Any delayed kick-off disrupts public transport at the end of the game. Television executives wouldn’t be happy either. They have schedules to stick to and advertisers to satisfy. Furthermore, the two club managers would happily lynch any match commander who decides to delay. They would have spent the day psyching their players to a peak of passion and controlled aggression. They would already have given the Henry V speech and they would know that adrenalin levels have a limited shelf life. Virtually everyone is against the match commander delaying the spectacle. They would say not, now, post-Hillsborough. Kick-offs were delayed at the drop of a hat in 1990 and 1991. ‘We don’t ever want another Hillsborough’ was a common refrain appreciated and accepted by even the fiercest critic.
But on 15 April 1989 at 2.45 p.m.? What then? Any match commander worth their salt knows that criticisms of any operational policing decision taken on the grounds of safety disappear, like the morning mist, as soon as a ball is kicked. But David Duckenfield was not a match commander worth his salt. That is not a cheap shot from an armchair pundit who has never been faced with this dilemma – I know that it’s a lonely place to be. David Duckenfield was not a match commander worth his salt because he now says so himself.
He tried to mask his failings in the aftermath of the disaster. He told an infamous and ignominious lie suggesting that Liverpool fans had forced their way into the ground. It was an instantly doomed attempt to carry off an air of authority. At the public inquiry that quickly followed the disaster, Mr Duckenfield would also try to share blame with junior officers for not recognising or rectifying his mistakes.
However, in a hushed Coroner’s Court on 11 March 2015, the room packed (itself an all-ticket affair with priority seating for the families bereaved by events that surrounded Mr Duckenfield’s decisions, actions and omissions), he finally admitted that he was not up to the job that fateful afternoon:
DAVID DUCKENFIELD: ‘One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I did not foresee where fans would go when they came in through the gates.’
CHRISTINA LAMBERT QC: ‘Do you think you should have done?’
DAVID DUCKENFIELD: ‘If I’d have been a fully competent, experienced, knowledgeable match commander with the experience, should we say, of Mr Mole, I no doubt would have thought about it. But I wasn’t in their position.’
CHRISTINA LAMBERT QC: ‘Understanding, as we do, your limited experience, which we discussed yesterday, is it not a basic principle of policing and, indeed, a basic principle in many other walks of life, where you must think about the consequences of a decision that you make?’
DAVID DUCKENFIELD: ‘I accept that, ma’am.’
CHRISTINA LAMBERT QC: ‘Why do you think you didn’t consider the consequences on 15 April?’
DAVID DUCKENFIELD: ‘I think it’s fair to say that I was overcome by the enormity of the situation and the decision I had to make, and, as a result of that – this is probably very hard to admit – as a result of that, I was so overcome, probably with the emotion of us having got into that situation, that my mind, for a moment, went blank.’
CHRISTINA LAMBERT QC: ‘Did you panic?’
DAVID DUCKENFIELD: ‘Ma’am, there is every possibility, but I think others should judge me.’
David Duckenfield may, after all, turn out to be a contrite man who repents of his failings and must live, for ever, with the dreadful consequences. As to an assessment of him as a police officer, he might be viewed as an example of a senior commander uncomfortably straddling two eras. The commanders that I had served under in the ’70s were often from a military background (though rarely of commissioned rank) and to a man (for all were men) they adopted an authoritarian demeanour. Many were ranters; those who believed respect and control was gained in direct relation to volume and fear. Most were autocrats; ‘my way or the highway’, ‘shape up or ship out’ kind of leaders. And, significantly, they liked to create a myth of infallibility. They of the ‘not on my watch’ kind of pep talks. A Superintendent, early in my service, had a framed poster behind the desk in his office that sent a less than subtle message to every visitor. It read: ‘To err is to be human, to err twice is to be history.’
With many, it was a facade. They had probably worked out that this was the way to get on in their career. Commanders in the twilight of their careers would select protégés in their own image. You’d better be tough; you’d better be ruthless; you’d better not screw up was the zeitgeist of the time.
By the time it got to my generation of commanders in the ’90s, we were viewed, by comparison, as a group of lily-livered, laissez-faire dilettantes.
David Duckenfield was in an uncomfortable position in 1989, with a foot on each of the shifting plates. He was educated, he had some emotional intelligence. He wasn’t a ranter but he may have still hung on, more quietly than some, to the theory of infallibility. Some who worked closely with Mr Duckenfield would say that he was quick to seize on any perceived slight towards his competence or judgement. A trait, perhaps, of an insecure leader. And eventually, under oath in that Warrington Court room, Mr Duckenfield confessed it to himself and the world.
David Duckenfield shouldn’t have even been in charge of policing at Hillsborough on that April afternoon. Brian Mole was the vastly more experienced Chief Superintendent at the Hillsborough Division and was expected to command the operation until nineteen days before the match.
Shrewd, clever, quick-witted and charming, Mr Mole had been a Detective for most of his career and in most ranks. In his earlier CID days, he had been given the nickname ‘Soames’, which is an obscure reference today. Soames Forsyte is the central character in a series of three novels by John Galsworthy, collectively known as The Forsyte Saga, about the life and times of an upper-middle-class family. The eponymous TV adaption of the books became a popular series in the ’60s and ’70s, more popular perhaps than Downton Abbey today. Soames, played by Eric Porter, was a dapper, smooth and self-righteous man who could be crafty in manipulating situations to his own advantage.
Whether he was ‘Soames’ or not, Brian Mole was popular. He had a loyal following amongst his coterie and he courted and rewarded that loyalty. He was a very good Detective; a very good operational commander; and a very good leader to have around at a time of crisis. He had commanded major events and high-risk football matches and he would have been the ideal man to be in charge at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989. Unfortunately, however, he had been removed from his post the previous month.
There have been a variety of explanations given to the recent inquest about the reasons for his untimely removal. Some have suggested that it was to assist his career development by giving him additional experience away from Sheffield, the city in which he had served throughout his career. I cannot say whether that was the case or not, but it is not an obvious reason. He was on the top of his professional game and had a wide range of experiences and skills. If he couldn’t find a way through the final hoop for Chief Officer appointments, which was via the National Extended Interview for Senior Command Training – and he had been to the interview twice – then perhaps he just didn’t have the X factor that was sought. Sending him to Barnsley
for ‘wider experience’ was not a magic key that would unlock further advancement. And anyhow, he was not the most favoured son in the eyes of some at Headquarters. He had been a bit too cavalier; too sharp; maybe a little too charismatic for his own good.
So if it wasn’t career development, what was it? Some have advanced the proposition, to Lord Justice Goldring and the jury at the Hillsborough Inquest, that Mr Mole’s transfer to Barnsley, weeks before a huge operational event on his division, was a simple and direct punishment. There had been an outrage on the Hillsborough Division more than twelve months prior to Mr Mole’s transfer. A despicable, and stupid, initiation prank involving a new recruit had gotten terribly out of hand. The recruit was ambushed at imitation gun point and taken to a quiet location, where his uniform was removed and he was handcuffed to a post and left. There naturally followed an investigation, which was finally resolved in early 1989. Perpetrators were sacked and officers of higher rank, who should have known what was going on, were demoted. There was a clearing of the decks at the Hillsborough Division. Then a gap. Then Brian Mole was moved. I don’t know whether he had surreptitiously spoken in support of any of the punished and thereby sealed his own fate. (It would have been in his nature, particularly if any were favourite loyal servants.) But a direct punishment move seems unlikely. That would have been done, if it was felt necessary, in conjunction with the other moves and demotions. It would probably have involved a move to a less prestigious post than that of Divisional Commander. This appeared to be a straight transfer to a post of similar status sometime after the brouhaha.
The clear-out at Hillsborough Division might have triggered a thought in the minds of some at Headquarters to take out the head of the stable. But it was the opportunity, a few weeks later, when the Barnsley Divisional Commander’s vacancy arose, to seal Mr Mole’s fate.
Hillsborough Untold: Aftermath of a disaster Page 2