I did reflect overnight, after reading the Hillsborough Panel Report from cover to cover and, ultimately, I decided to say something. Tom Richmond’s first point – likely crucifixion at the hands of the press – was probably correct. But four years’ careful reflection has led me to conclude that his second point should have had no positive influence on my decision whatsoever. The fact that this firestorm surrounded me personally, rather than my job title, should have caused me to be even more circumspect in making any public statement. If people ask: ‘What have you learned from your ordeal?’, this is one feature: don’t fuel the fire when you’re tied to the stake.
Actually, what I also know on reflection is that it would not have made an iota of difference to the premature ending of my career. The hue and cry was out, the pitchforks and burning torches would still have turned up at my drawbridge even if I had remained firmly, and silently, locked inside my castle.
I settled down at home to read the Hillsborough Panel Report. I was helped by Sam Millar’s highlighting. My name is mentioned nineteen times in five different sections of the report. There is a sub-chapter heading with my name in the title. But nowhere within the 395 pages does the report accuse me of any wrongdoing.
I texted the Chief Executive and solicitor of the West Yorkshire Police Authority, Fraser Sampson, who would later become an influential actor in my departure from the force. I asked him if he had had chance to read the Hillsborough report. He texted me at 11.17 p.m. that night to tell me that he had the report and was going through it. He texted again at 6.39 a.m. the following day to say that he couldn’t find any cause for concern within it.
I crawled into bed at about 3 a.m. content in the certain knowledge that I had done nothing that I was ashamed of twenty-three years previously, but also satisfied because there were no direct accusations about me, or about my role, in the authoritative report that had been published the previous day. The report was written, arguably, in a leading style, and for anyone who already had a prejudice about the police role, post disaster, there were references that allowed them to infer all kinds of mischief. But there was no direct criticism and no smoking gun. As I went up to bed I was undecided about whether or not I should make any media comment.
On Thursday 13 September 2012, I had booked the day as annual leave, so too with the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A Chief Constable’s diary requires about three months’ notice to take a four-day break. I did not absent myself because of the furore, less still did I book leave in connection with the publication date of the Hillsborough report. I have a keen interest in historic motor racing and the mid-September weekend is the date of the historic revival meeting at Goodwood in Sussex, probably the premier event in the annual historic racing calendar. I had been due to meet friends for a weekend at leisure.
After only three hours sleep, I awoke to the sound of what I took to be drizzling rain. I had never noticed before that the sound of whispering voices in the silent darkness sounds exactly like light rain. My house has a perimeter boundary wall. My bedroom is configured so that the open window of the en-suite bathroom permits the only view beyond the boundary and onto the access road to the house. Whilst visiting the bathroom about 6.30 a.m., I came to the view that it wasn’t rain I could hear but voices. I cracked open the bathroom window and saw, in the dawn light, a gaggle of four men dressed in dark and waterproof outerwear and three had got expensive-looking cameras around their necks. They were journalists and photographers whispering acknowledgements to each other as they gathered outside my front gate. There were two 4x4 vehicles parked on the access road and they seemed to be encamped.
I woke Gillian to tell her the news. The first implication was that our early departure for Sussex was off. I immediately saw the consequences of being seen to drive off in my car after putting weekend luggage in the boot. The second implication was how to get rid of these people, who, whilst doing their job professionally and in the name of public interest, can be more than a little intrusive.
Upon checking with my office, I learned that there were a larger number of 4x4s and men with cameras at my headquarters. I was asked whether someone from the office should go out to tell the pack that I was not expected in that morning because I was on leave. I suggested not as I didn’t want the number outside my home to double. These others were OK where they were, twelve miles away from my front door.
I was constantly turning over in my mind the words of Tom Richmond from the night before. I decided that I would put out a media statement. Having reached that decision I perhaps should have given it much more thought and taken advice. I was on annual leave; my bags were packed and in the hall; I had done nothing that I needed to defend; and the Hillsborough Panel Report was not critical of me. What had I to lose? The clock was ticking.
I picked up the phone to my PA, Helena Wyles, when I knew she was in the office. After exchanging pleasantries and hearing of her own confrontation with the press and photographers outside Headquarters, I asked her to take dictation over the phone. Helena’s shorthand is excellent and, after years of working together, I know the steady pace of dictation that leads, efficiently, to a finished typed product.
The statement, made without notes or preparation (another learning point), flowed. It would do, of course, because the core of the statement was basically what I had been saying to every enquirer or bar room companion over the years since the disaster. If they became aware of my personal knowledge of Hillsborough, they either asked my opinion about causation or, more often than not, expressed their own homespun view about the cause of one of the greatest peacetime tragedies that this country has ever witnessed. It is a general rule, much broader than the issue of the Hillsborough disaster, that people’s opinions aren’t necessarily influenced by knowledge and facts. I have confronted countless notions that ‘it was caused by Liverpool fans turning up late and drunk and forcing their way into the ground. What option did the police have?’ Such commentators often back up their analysis with the reported experience of a friend, or a friend of a friend, who lived in the area or was passing through and saw it for themselves. And I have always offered a similar considered response.
Given Tom Richmond’s interpretation of Trevor Hicks’s remarks, that I was somehow perceived as being in the camp of the trenchant fan accusers, I thought my tried and tested, even-handed response would do here. I spoke the words without stumbling. I had practised them for twenty-three years and knew them by heart. And Helena typed them up as follows:
The more we learn about events, the more we may understand. I sat through every single day of the Taylor Inquiry, in the summer of 1989. I learned so much. Taylor was right in saying that the disaster was caused, mainly, through a lack of police control. Fans’ behaviour, to the extent that it was relevant at all, made the job of the police, in the crush outside Leppings Lane turnstiles, harder than it needed to be. But it didn’t cause the disaster any more than the sunny day that encouraged people to linger outside the stadium as kick-off approached. I held those views then, I hold them now. I have never, since hearing the Taylor evidence unfold, offered any other interpretation in public or private.
It is against that backcloth that any documents with my name attached, out of the 400,000 revealed, must be seen. For example, the reference to preparation for the contributions hearing was to position South Yorkshire Police’s liability against the Football Club, the stadium engineers and the council, which issued a defective safety certificate. It was NOT to apportion any blame whatsoever to the fans.
In the absence of all the facts, I was called upon to resign fourteen years ago, when I became the Chief Constable of Merseyside. I really welcome the disclosure of all the facts that can be known about the Hillsborough tragedy because I have absolutely nothing to hide. I read the 395-page report from cover to cover last night and that remains my position. The panel, in my view, has produced a piece of work that will stand the test of time and scrutiny. Whilst not wishing to become a conducting rod for all th
e genuine and justified hurt and anguish, I would invite anyone to do the same as me and read the document and the papers online.
They document, in detail, my personal actions in respect of the Hillsborough tragedy, which were, in summary, as follows: I purchased a ticket and was an off-duty spectator at the match. As soon as I realised the unfolding tragedy, I put myself on duty, giving immediate assistance behind the South Stand. I later set up a receiving centre, at a local police station, for supporters who had become separated from friends and family.
In 1989, I was a Chief Inspector in a non-operational role at Headquarters. Four days after the disaster (and after all the vile newspaper coverage had been written), I was one of several officers pulled together by the then Deputy Chief Constable, Peter Hays [sic], to support him in piecing together what had taken place at the event.
By that time, the Chief Constable, Peter Wright, had handed over the formal investigation of the tragedy to an independent police force, West Midlands Police. It was West Midlands Police that presented evidence before the Taylor Inquiry. The South Yorkshire Deputy Chief Constable’s team, under the leadership of Chief Superintendent Wain, was a parallel activity to inform Chief Officers of facts rather than rely on the speculation rampant at that time. Another team was later created, to work with the solicitors who were representing South Yorkshire Police at the Taylor Inquiry, to vet statements from South Yorkshire Police Officers that were intended to be presented to the Inquiry. I was not a member of that team. I never altered a statement nor asked for one to be altered. Two South Yorkshire Police teams have been conflated in the minds of some commentators. I subsequently sat through each day of the Taylor Inquiry, briefing the South Yorkshire Chief Constable and Deputy Chief Constable on a regular basis. These briefings acknowledged and accepted the responsibility of the force in the disaster. The evidence was overwhelming. Shortly after the conclusion of the Taylor Inquiry, I was posted to other duties. I had nothing further to do with the subsequent Coroner’s Inquests and proceedings, other than occasional advice because of my knowledge of the evidence presented to the Taylor Inquiry.
We never did get away to Sussex that day. The reporters and photographers hung around until mid-afternoon, at which point their number had grown to more than half a dozen, including folk with television cameras as well as those with long-lens SLRs. I stayed indoors and made lots of telephone calls.
Amongst the calls was one made to the Chair of my Police Authority, Councillor Mark Burns-Williamson. The Police Authority was my collective boss. Each provincial police force, and its Chief Constable, was answerable to a seventeen-member committee of councillors and selected independent local people. The Police Authorities across the country were due to be phased out by dint of new legislation and replaced, within a few weeks, by a single, elected Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for each force area. Cllr Burns-Williamson was favourite to win the vote. The looming election was an unspoken context to everything that we did as a force in the run-up to November 2012. Whilst it was important that we weren’t seen to favour one candidate over another, Mark did expect the force and its Chief Constable to be aware of the implications of any hint of embarrassment for the outgoing Authority of which he was Chairman.
That was in my mind when I spoke with the Chair on Thursday 13 September. He was sympathetic, particularly when I recounted the story of the gathered pack outside my house. He told me that the Authority had already received a number of questions and complaints about my alleged conduct. I asked him how the Authority would be responding. He told me that they would play it long and perhaps meet the following week to decide on a response. I told him that I had made a statement to the press.
The Police Authority, through the office of Fraser Sampson, the Chief Executive and solicitor, would later – much later – criticise me for not sharing my press statement with them before publication. I wouldn’t seek to cavil about whether I should have done – it was a raging storm and they became caught up in it too. In my defence, I would only say that Mr Hicks had mentioned me by name, not by job title, and the press pack were at my door and not at the steps of the Police Authority. This was a personal matter unconnected with the force and its accountability structure.
Whatever happened to our relationship subsequently, I am sure that when we spoke on Thursday 13 September, there was no tension between me and my political master. However, as the politics developed, so did the tension.
I had said my twopenneth. The pack had retreated. My Chairman appeared to be supportive and his executive and legal adviser, Fraser Sampson, agreed with my assessment of the Hillsborough Report. I was now free to go on my weekend break the following day. Or so I thought.
At 6.30 a.m. on Friday morning I awoke to the same sound of ‘drizzling rain’. I looked out of the bathroom window to find fewer people but now TV cameras to the fore. I cursed myself for not having packed the car the night before and secreted it somewhere. I went out to confront the reporters. I made a Faustian pact with Lucy Manning of ITN, who was the most prominent journalist present. If I gave a ‘drive away’ interview through the window of my car, would she and the other reporters go away and leave my family in peace? She was able to say yes without consulting anybody else. They set up and chose the spot where the interview would take place. I walked out in uniform and got into the car with a nod to the cameras. I stopped at the agreed spot, and wound down the window to Ms Manning. It was all going so well until her first question. She said that I continued to blame the fans for the disaster, and asked what I had to say to the families of those who lost their lives at Hillsborough who are outraged by that slur. The camera detects my chin hitting the floor. I was not blaming the fans for the disaster, I was saying the opposite. Hadn’t she read my statement?!
I had not seen the Granada News programme, which was broadcast in Liverpool and the north-west region on Thursday night. On that programme, in the light of my media statement that day, Margaret Aspinall, who had taken over the role of Chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group from Trevor Hicks, had condemned me. It wouldn’t be the last time. It was she who had interpreted my statement as ‘continuing to blame the fans for the disaster’. Her claim and my counter claim made for good telly. By agreeing to an ad hoc interview with Lucy Manning, I had stepped into a self-dug hole.
I always believed I could respond positively to the media even when the most critical finger was being pointed at my force. I had been doing it, day-in, day-out, for nineteen years since becoming a Chief Officer. Furthermore, I had served my Chief Officer apprenticeship under two great communicators. First, Richard Wells, the Chief of South Yorkshire Police post disaster, who was articulate and charismatic. I learned from him that saying sorry or being prepared to explain the context of any decision or action was not a sign of weakness. Mr Wells had publicly expressed remorse, numerous times, on behalf of his force for its failure to care for the young lives lost at Hillsborough as it should have done.
I later went as Assistant Chief Constable to West Yorkshire Police, in the early ’90s, where I worked with Keith Hellawell, who was the Chief. He had a televisual magnetism. One of his great communication skills was an ability to express personal opinions about the knottiest of social issues in such a way that caused people to think not that he necessarily had the answers, but that he cared deeply about trying to find them. Having sat by these two mentors, I had developed the confidence to put myself forward to be accountable to the public, at any time and for any occasion that demanded it.
I remember, for example, an impromptu press conference in 2008 on the steps of Dewsbury Police Station, when the place was besieged by the world’s press, who were growing restless about my force’s apparent failure to find the missing school girl, Shannon Matthews. The pack was baying for police blood. What I couldn’t tell them was that we were looking very closely at the actions of Shannon’s mother behind the scenes.
I was also there to satisfy the media appetite in the aftermath of that invest
igation, once we had discovered Shannon’s whereabouts and arrested her mother and uncle in relation to her abduction. It was important to praise the investigating officers and also to publicly thank ‘our friends in the media’ for their ‘invaluable assistance and patient support’. Media appearances became familiar and comfortable.
I hadn’t yet realised, however, that the crucial difference, identified by Tom Richmond on the Wednesday evening, is that media handling is much more straightforward when the issue is about your organisation. You can deliver a line; an explanation; sometimes an apology; and, less frequently, an admonishment, and then you can walk away. Go home, leave the organisation behind, and take off your uniform or suit. For only the second time in my professional life this was personal. There is no walking away or second chance to explain. One has to take account of the fact that any words spoken will be set against a prejudicial backdrop and therefore run the risk of driving, rather than diminishing, the story. For a seasoned communicator, I had never felt so misunderstood.
The penny dropped, finally, that there was literally nothing I could say on my own account that would make my current situation better and the strong possibility that anything I said, even if I believed it to be the truth, would make that situation worse. I had worked that out before the email from my district judge pal, and before I received the wise advice that scapegoats are created to be talked about not listened to.
Hillsborough Untold: Aftermath of a disaster Page 18