The South Yorkshire police superintendent in charge outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles at Hillsborough in 1989 when 96 people died has agreed that his commanding officer told a “wicked lie” when falsely accusing Liverpool football supporters of forcing open an exit gate.

Questioned by Peter Wilcock QC, representing 75 families whose relatives died in the Hillsborough disaster, Supt Roger Marshall told the new inquest into the 96 deaths that when he heard Ch Supt David Duckenfield had told that “lie”, which was then communicated to the media, “I was surprised and not a little shocked, hearing that, I really was.”

Wilcock said: “It was a wicked thing to say, wasn’t it?” After initial hesitation, Marshall said: “Yes, it was.”

Under repeated challenge by Wilcock, Marshall said he did not know of Duckenfield’s “lie” until Lord Justice Taylor’s official inquiry, which opened a month after the disaster. Marshall said that despite having met Duckenfield in the control room at Hillsborough after the disaster had happened, and then sharing a car with him to South Yorkshire police headquarters for a debrief with the chief constable, he never heard that Duckenfield had blamed Liverpool fans for forcing the gate.

He said he was told by a police counsellor not to read newspapers or watch television reports about the disaster, owing to his sense of personal responsibility, so had seen none of the media coverage about it, including Duckenfield’s comments.

On the day of the disaster, 15 April 1989, at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, Marshall asked for a gate to be opened, to relieve a crush at the turnstiles after the police had, as he admitted, “lost control” of the crowd. Duckenfield, responding to the request, ordered police to open a gate.

Marshall agreed that the tunnel inside the Leppings Lane turnstiles, facing the exit gate C, made an “obvious route” for supporters to the central pens of the overcrowded Leppings Lane terrace. He agreed that adding more people to the crowd in those overcrowded pens carried “the obvious danger of overcrowding and crushing to people in it”. The 96 Liverpool supporters who died were in the two central pens.

Marshall has already told the inquest that he did not know that each of three wide exit gates at the Leppings Lane end were identified by the letters A, B and C. He said he had “no reason” to know.

“Do you not think that is an extraordinarily complacent answer,” Wilcock asked him, arguing that it would have helped if Marshall had been able to specify which gate should be opened.

“I absolutely agree with you,” Marshall replied.

Gate C, he agreed, was the “worst possible” gate of the three to open, he accepted, because it faced the tunnel to the overcrowded pens.

Marshall told the inquest that he, Duckenfield, and Supt Bernard Murray, who was second in command in the control box, shared responsibility for the failure to send police officers to close off the tunnel when the gate was opened, and direct fans away from the overcrowded pens.

Wilcock put it to Marshall that “in your heart of hearts” he believed Duckenfield made “a fundamental mistake” by not doing that, “but you can’t bring yourself to say it for fear of being thought disloyal”.

Marshall replied: “That may be true, but I share the responsibility for that, because it is a profound regret on my part that I did not say to control: ‘There is a mass of people coming in through the gates. Please ensure there is a reception committee to meet them.’ So it is not just David Duckenfield’s or Bernard Murray’s responsibility.”

Wilcock put it to Marshall that in his public statements after the disaster he had sought to “smear” Liverpool fans by saying the disaster was caused by fans who had drunk too much and arrived late, some without tickets. He had referred to the supporters in evidence as “an army”.

Marshall said he wrote of his Hillsborough experiences in his police notebook, but that had never been recovered, the inquest jury was told. In his first statement, he did not write about police failings, and referred to misbehaviour by supporters, but not to their efforts to save people as the disaster unfolded.

Marshall said it was not the purpose of his statement to write a “litany” of police failures, and he had referred at the Taylor inquiry to supporters helping in the aftermath, although many were hostile, he said.

Marshall was referred to a letter his solicitor had written in response to a complaint in 1990 by three sets of parents whose children were killed at Hillsborough – those of John McBrien, who was 18, Sarah and Victoria Hicks, 19 and 15 respectively, and Richard Jones, 25, who died with his girlfriend Tracey Cox, 23.

The letter, which was written by his solicitor, Vincent Hale, and which Marshall confirmed he had read, said that these parents’ children “had obviously entered the ground early to be at the front, were not guilty of whatever is alleged against those who came late and caused the unstoppable crush which was the actual cause of the deaths.”

In fact, Wilcock told the inquest, Richard Jones was one of the supporters allowed in through gate C at 2.52pm, and more than 30 of the 96 people who died came through gate C at that time, shortly before kick-off.

“I wasn’t aware of that,” Marshall replied. “I thought the number [who came through gate C and died] was much smaller than that.”

The 1990 letter said that if the three sets of parents continued with their complaints against Marshall, “the truth concerning the fans mentioned [who Marshall was alleging were drunk, late, irresponsible and had been a “primary cause” of the deaths] will come out, and may rub off on to other innocent fans.”

Wilcock put to Marshall that that was a “threat” to the McBrien, Hicks and Jones parents that “their children will be tarred with the same brush as the people you say caused this disaster”.

Marshall said that he had not perceived it as a threat, but ultimately agreed with Wilcock that the letter had been “offensive.”

“This exemplified the attitude you had in 1989 and 1990 to this terrible disaster, doesn’t it?” Wilcock asked, referring to the allegations of hooliganism and misbehaviour. “This was your mindset.”

Marshall replied that it had been very difficult to police football hooliganism in the 1970s and 80s and said he maintained that the problems outside Leppings Lane, leading him to lose control and call for the opening of the gate, were caused by a “significant minority” of Liverpool supporters who had been drinking too much, arrived late and were determined to get into the ground.

Wilcock put to him: “Many families, including Doreen Jones [Richard Jones’ mother], who I represent, have lived with the smear that her son – and I ask this question on behalf of her son but I could do it on behalf of many others – who went through gate C, was somehow responsible for his own death.

“Will you take the opportunity now to apologise to her for suggesting anything other than the fact that he was an entirely innocent victim of this disaster, as was each and every person who died?”

“I will sir, yes,” Marshall replied.

Doreen Jones and her daughter, Stephanie Conning, who went to the match at Hillsborough with her brother and Tracey Cox, and survived, were in court to hear Marshall give his evidence.

The inquest continues.