The Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, is facing more questions about Hillsborough after being forced to admit that claims on his website about losing close friends in the disaster were false.

In an interview with Liverpool’s Radio City News on Tuesday, it was put to him that in 2012 he said on his website that he had “lost close personal friends”. Nuttall denied making the claim.

When the presenter, Dave Easson, who was at Hillsborough on the day of the disaster, showed him the evidence that the claim had been made on his website, Nuttall replied: “I haven’t lost a close, personal friend. I’ve lost someone who I know.”

Hillsborough families dismayed by Paul Nuttall's 'insulting' admission Read more

Nuttall then suggested that he was not responsible for the statement, saying: “I’m sorry about that, but that is something … I haven’t put that out. That is wrong.”



Ukip subsequently announced that a party press officer, Lynda Roughley, had taken responsibility for the posting and offered her resignation. On Wednesday morning it emerged that the offer had been rejected. A party spokesperson said that Roughley should not lose her career for a “minor error” after years of loyal and effective service.

Earlier, Roughley had issued a statement in which she was quoted as saying: “I am entirely responsible for the website post regarding Paul’s comments about having ‘close friends’ who died at Hillsborough. Paul is a man of great integrity and would not say something he knew to be untrue. It’s me who has made this mistake, and one I feel absolutely terrible about.

“I am frankly mortified at the distress this issue has caused Paul and may have caused to anyone involved with the Hillsborough tragedy. I have today offered my resignation, I could not be more sorry.”

Nuttall’s admission came four days after the Guardian reported that Nuttall had denied lying about being at Hillsborough on the day of the 1989 disaster.



On Monday, when asked about the claim that he had not been at Hillsborough, Nuttall said: “I feel bloody angry, angrier than I’ve ever been and I thought I had seen everything in politics.”

He said he believed he was a victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by the Labour party. “I know it’s a dirty game, but this is beyond scraping the barrel to be perfectly honest with you. It’s upset me personally, it’s upset my family.”

Radio City Talk (@RadioCityTalk) UKIP leader Paul Nuttall admits that claims on his website that he lost a "close personal friend" at Hillsborough are false pic.twitter.com/bnNKm29IsU

On Tuesday, Nuttall told the radio show he had been at Hillsborough and described claims to the contrary as cruel. “I was there on that day. I have witnesses, people who will stand up in court and back me up 100%.”

The revelation that he had not lost close friends at Hillsborough brought an angry reaction from relatives of those who died. Margaret Aspinall, the chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose 18-year-old son James died in the disaster, described the admission as “appalling”.

She has previously questioned why Nuttall, an MEP for almost eight years, had never offered to support the families’ campaign to challenge the police cover-up and to win justice.

It also prompted a number of MPs to denounce Nuttall, with Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, saying: “It is sad to see a tragic event like Hillsborough being dragged into politics in this way. Paul Nuttall’s blatant untruths have caught up with him. I’m sure voters in Stoke will punish him as a result.”

Ben Howlett, the Tory MP for Bath, described the admission as “sickening”, while Karl Turner, Labour MP for Hull East, branded it “shocking”. Chi Onwurah, a shadow business minister, said: “I didn’t think my opinion of Ukip’s leadership could get any lower, then I saw this.”

Others questioned whether Nuttall could be believed on other issues. Tom Blenkinsop, another Labour MP, said if the leader of Ukip was “prepared to lie about this, for a very prolonged period of time … what else would he lie to the British public about?”

Nuttall was 12 at the time of the disaster and was a pupil at Savio high school in Bootle. One of his former teachers, a Roman Catholic priest, has told the Guardian that the school believed it had been aware of the identities of every boy who had been at Hillsborough in order to help them through a difficult period, and that Nuttall was not among them.



A fellow pupil at the school who says he has been a friend of Nuttall for decades said the Ukip leader had never mentioned being there. “I have been very good friends with Paul for over 25 years,” he said, adding that during that time they had “never spoken” about Hillsborough.

Joe Benton, who was Labour MP for Bootle for 25 years, said that to the best of his knowledge Nuttall had not mentioned Hillsborough when he stood against him as Ukip’s candidate in the 2005 and 2010 general elections.



Nuttall had not mentioned being present at Hillsborough during any public meeting they had both attended, nor in his campaign literature, Benton said, despite the strength of feeling within the constituency about the police negligence that led to the deaths and the subsequent official cover-up that led to Liverpool fans being blamed for the disaster.

When confronted with the evidence during the interview on Radio City in Liverpool, Nuttall said he had no idea why his personal website was carrying the false claim. A few hours later, in an interview with BBC Radio Merseyside, he said a Ukip press officer was to blame, adding that it was the same press officer he has previously said was responsible for asserting, on his personal website, that he had been a professional footballer.

In a statement on Tuesday night Nuttall said: “This was an article that I did not write and did not see prior to is being posted by a member of my staff.”

Shortly after the two interviews, Nuttall’s website underwent comprehensive changes, with every reference to his having lost close friends at Hillsborough disappearing.



Staffordshire police have said they are investigating an allegation of election fraud after Nuttall’s nomination papers for the Stoke Central byelection gave an address in the city at which he subsequently admitted he was not living. Knowingly providing false information on a nomination paper is an offence punishable by up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment. Ukip said all rules had been complied with.

Nuttall’s personal website has carried the claim that he had once been a professional footballer with Tranmere Rovers. After Rovers stated that he had been a member of its youth side, but never a professional, Nuttall blamed his website’s statement on a Ukip press officer.

Until late last year, Nuttall’s profile page on the LinkedIn social networking site implied that he had a PhD. He did not complete his doctoral studies, however. Challenged about this, Nuttall insisted that the LinkedIn page “wasn’t put up by us, and we don’t know where it’s come from”. The page was subsequently edited to remove any reference to a PhD.