A high court judge has granted permission for proceedings to continue against the former South Yorkshire police chief superintendent David Duckenfield, whom the Crown Prosecution Service is seeking to charge with the manslaughter of 95 people killed in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

Sir Peter Openshaw, sitting at Preston crown court, emphasised that he was allowing the CPS application for a “voluntary bill of indictment” of Duckenfield, solely so that Duckenfield can receive legal aid funding to be represented in the process. He is not yet formally charged with the offences, and was granted only limited legal aid in December.

The CPS application was necessary to overcome a legal bar, a “stay” on further prosecutions of Duckenfield, ordered in 2000 by a judge, Mr Justice Hooper, following a private prosecution.

The arguments over the merits of lifting the stay will now be heard in April, at the same time as an application by Duckenfield – and five other men facing criminal charges relating to Hillsborough – that their prosecutions should be stopped because they are an “abuse of process”.

Duckenfield was the police officer in command of the 15 April 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough ground, at which 95 people died in a crush.

The 96th person killed at Hillsborough, Tony Bland, died when his life support machine was switched off in 1993, which means that his death occurred outside the then legal time limit for a manslaughter charge, of one year and one day.

The CPS has already charged five other men with criminal offences relating to the disaster and South Yorkshire police’s handling of it. Graham Mackrell, a former Sheffield Wednesday secretary and safety officer, is charged with three breaches of safety legislation; ex-South Yorkshire police chief superintendent Donald Denton and chief inspector Alan Foster are charged with acts tending and intending to pervert the course of justice, as is the force’s former solicitor, Peter Metcalf.

Sir Norman Bettison, a South Yorkshire police chief inspector at the time of the disaster, later the chief constable of Merseyside and of West Yorkshire police, is charged with four counts of misconduct in a public office.

A small group of bereaved family members, whose relatives were among the 96 people killed as a result of the crush at Hillsborough almost 29 years ago, travelled to the court to attend the hearing, and sat in the public seats.

Approximately 25 people were also at St George’s Hall in Liverpool to watch a live broadcast of the proceedings from Preston. Duckenfield was not required to attend the proceedings, and he did not.