The main author of the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report says it’s time UKIP leader Paul Nuttall made a full statement on his connections to the Hillsborough disaster.

UKIP is in disarray following the resignations of two party officials in Merseyside in protest at their leader’s “crass insensitivity” towards Hillsborough.

Stuart Monkcom, UKIP’s Liverpool branch chair, and Adam Heatherington, the party’s Merseyside spokesman, have quit their positions and resigned their party memberships.

And writing for the ECHO, Professor Phil Scraton says: “Regarding Hillsborough, it is time for him to make a full statement, in as much detail as memory allows, recounting his journey to Sheffield, arrival at – and entry into – the ground, his precise location inside, his proximity to the central pens and his journey home. He might also explain why his family did not volunteer statements to the investigations at the time, including their experiences of Leppings Lane in the previous year.”

Earlier in his article, he states: “Through the past 27 years I have read hundreds of testimonies from Hillsborough survivors, rescuers, witnesses and the bereaved. I am well aware that in the aftermath of disasters some might exaggerate, even fabricate, their experiences. For others, as the recent inquests demonstrated, their memories are anything but precise.

“I’m not that concerned to know whether or not Paul Nuttall, as he maintains, was at Hillsborough in 1989 – and 1988. But given his public standing and the impact of his comments on the bereaved and survivors at such a sensitive time, I do want to know more.”

And he adds: “There is a further coincidental dimension to all this. The Hillsborough Project, of which I was the director, was based at what is now Edge Hill University, then a college of higher education. We wrote two substantial reports, in 1990 and 1995. We worked with Jimmy McGovern on his award-winning drama-documentary, Hillsborough, first broadcast in late 1996. I accompanied many families to the Stuart-Smith scrutiny of new evidence and wrote three submissions. In 1999 I published the first edition of Hillsborough: The Truth. It was widely publicised and serialised in the Sunday Mirror.

“A year later the prosecutions of the two senior officers at Hillsborough were held in Leeds. Towards the end of 2000 I published the second edition of the book. The coverage, especially in the North West, was extensive. We hosted meetings with families and survivors at Edge Hill. Paul Nuttall studied History at the College. Our Centre was in the heart of the campus. We must have passed each other on numerous occasions – on the pavements, corridors, coffee bar and so on. He would have walked past our centre many times.

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“During that period, given the massive publicity our work received, Paul Nuttall could not have failed to know about the Project, its work with the bereaved and survivors. Yet he never approached us, never shared his experiences. I understand fully there were many people who were, and have remained, unable to talk about what they witnessed on the day.

"What is not so readily explained is why Paul Nuttall did not drop by for even a confidential conversation, why he held back on disclosure until the Hillsborough Independent Panel was in session and why he chose national television as the forum to break his silence? These are questions of timing and context that, alongside the questions regarding the details of his experiences on the day, require explanation.

“If Paul Nuttall was not a prominent politician, these questions would not matter. But he is now a significant public figure and his party has called out others on matters of trust, frankness and openness. Given that flaws in his Hillsborough story have been exposed and admitted, and the bereaved families and survivors are in the midst of a crucial period in the ongoing investigations, the questions detailed here require answers.”