The South Yorkshire police officer who commanded the 1989 FA Cup semifinal at Hillsborough when 96 people died has admitted that, as the disaster was happening, he lied about a crucial order he gave to open a large exit gate and allow hundreds of supporters in.

Former Ch Supt David Duckenfield, who has admitted at the new inquests into the deaths that he was inexperienced when he took on the job of football match commander, apologised unreservedly to the bereaved families of the 96 victims for the lie. About 200 were in the Warrington courtroom, listening in silence as Duckenfield made his admission.

He also admitted he made a serious mistake on the day in not thinking about where the supporters coming through the opened exit gate would go when they were inside the stadium. Duckenfield acknowledged that hundreds of them went straight down a tunnel facing them, which led to the overcrowded central pens of the Leppings Lane terrace, where the lethal crush happened. He also accepted it was a mistake not to have closed off that tunnel to direct fans away from those pens.

In the courtroom, a converted space on a Warrington business park, some among the rows of families wept as they heard Duckenfield admit to his “serious mistake,” and the lie he told about the Liverpool supporters. For the families, it has been almost 26 years since they lost their loved ones at the football match on a sunny day in April, and almost exactly a year since these new inquests began on March 31 last year, the previous one, having been quashed in 2012. Duckenfield, the senior officer in command of the match despite his limited experience, admitted his mistakes following months of evidence heard from his own senior and junior officers, and supporters who attended the game including bereaved parents, about the events which led to the horror of the day.

Duckenfield did not admit that his lie involved him telling Graham Kelly, then secretary of the Football Association, that Liverpool supporters had forced or stormed the exit gate, as Kelly and other witnesses have testified. But Duckenfield admitted that, when Kelly came to see him in the Hillsborough control room at 3:15pm on the day of the semifinal, 15 April 1989, he said fans had gained “unauthorised access” through the gate. Duckenfield did not tell Kelly that, in fact, he had ordered the gate to be opened, at 2:52pm, to alleviate serious congestion outside the turnstiles to the Leppings Lane end.

Christina Lambert QC, for the coroner, Sir John Goldring, asked Duckenfield: “Do you consider you told Graham Kelly and others something that was not true?”

“Yes ma’am,” Duckenfield, 70, replied.

“Do you consider now that you told them a lie?” Lambert asked.

“Yes ma’am,” he said.

With the families listening, Duckenfield said: “Ma’am, I deeply regret what happened on the day. It was a major mistake on my part. I have no excuses. I apologise unreservedly to the families and I hope they believe it is a very, very sincere apology.”

Goldring himself intervened to ask Duckenfield whether he lied because he thought that his instruction to open the exit gate had caused the crush. Duckenfield denied that was the reason, and said instead that he was “probably in shock and stress” at the unfolding disaster.

After lying to Kelly, Duckenfield acknowledged he went to the boardroom at Hillsborough, where Tony Ensor, Liverpool football club’s solicitor at the time, has testified Duckenfield told him and others that Liverpool fans “forced open a gate”.

Duckenfield said he could not recall saying that, but agreed with Lambert that he missed a “golden opportunity” at that meeting to correct the lie he had told Kelly. He said it was “a terrible fall from the standards that one would expect”.

Questioned about his order to open the exit gate after he was warned somebody could die in the congestion outside, Duckenfield admitted he gave “no thought” – as hundreds of people came through for five minutes while the gate was open – to where they would go. As the spectators came in, he said, he only thought that they would come on to the concourse inside and he did not foresee that they would go through the tunnel leading to the pens. Nor did he consider the risk of overcrowding in the pens, he said.

Duckenfield said: “Ma’am, I think it is fair to say that that is arguably one of the biggest regrets of my life, that I did not foresee where the fans would go when they came in through the gates.”

Asked by Lambert if he made a “serious mistake”, Duckenfield replied: “No Ma’am. Under the circumstances, with my limited ability, I accept it was a mistake, a mistake I shouldn’t have made, a mistake I regret bitterly, but I was not consciously thinking about the situation at the time, and it was a grave mistake and I apologise profusely.”

Goldring then intervened, pointing out: “I think he said ‘grave’ mistake, or a ‘great’ mistake; either might be thought to be the same as a serious mistake. Do you think so?”

Duckenfield responded: “Yes, sir.”

Concluding two days of questioning by Lambert, before the families’ barristers take their turn on Thursday, Duckenfield admitted to a series of mistakes and failings. These included accepting the job of match commander at all, when his experience of football policing and knowledge of the Hillsborough ground was so limited. It was a mistake, he agreed, not to have ensured he was more familiar with the layout of the ground once he did accept the job.

Asked if he fulfilled his role properly and professionally as match commander as the disaster unfolded, he replied: “Possibly not.”

The inquests continue.











