The families of the 96 people who died at Hillsborough have called on the chief constable of South Yorkshire police to resign immediately, and accused the force of seeking to subvert and mislead the inquests into their deaths.

After the jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing, there was trenchant criticism of the behaviour of South Yorkshire police and the Yorkshire ambulance service, which saw its role in the 15 April 1989 disaster examined for the first time, during the two-year inquest.

Both were accused of attempting to row back on earlier apologies issued after the publication of the Hillsborough independent panel report in 2012, which led to the original verdicts of accidental death being quashed and the new inquest ordered.

Stephen Wright, whose brother Graham was among those who died in the disaster, has criticised the force for failing to accept its wrongdoing earlier and called for its chief, David Crompton, to step down on behalf of 22 of the families.

Anne Burkett, whose son Peter was also killed, talked about what she called the “industrial-strength cover-up” by police of what really happened. “Now is the time for consequences,” she said, also calling for Crompton to go, and for wider remedial measures to be taken against the force.

After an inquest that lasted two years, the longest in British legal history, the Hillsborough jury found that the 96 victims of the 1989 disaster were unlawfully killed. They exonerated Liverpool fans of blame, and they listed a catalogue of failings by the police and ambulance services that contributed to the deaths.

Amid an emotional throng outside the courtroom, Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary who helped kickstart the process that led to the new inquests seven years ago, also hit out at the “slurs” directed at fans during the inquests.



“Disgracefully, slurs have been thrown around in this courtroom about supporters of Liverpool football club. Disgracefully, the cover-up has continued in this courtroom. Disgracefully, public money has been spent on those lies and putting these families through hell once again,” he said.

“I find that completely unacceptable. People must be held to account for their actions. Prosecutions must follow.”

Burnham’s role in reopening the process was praised on the club’s television channel LFCTV by Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool’s player-manager at the time of the disaster.

He said: “When Andy Burnham came and said he would get the papers released at an earlier date than the 30 years that was government stipulation, he’s done a fantastic job getting that.”

Dalglish also praised the way the victims and their families had conducted themselves in their search for justice.

“The way they have gone about getting to this point has been unbelievable,” he said. “Their humility, the way they’ve conducted themselves, their dignity and the determination to get what they thought was justice and the belief from them that the supporters were in no way, shape or form, to blame. You’re pleased that they have won this, but on the other hand it has taken 27 years out of their life, what they gave for their life and their families’ life.”

There are two ongoing investigations – Operation Resolve, looking at events leading up to the disaster, and an Independent Police Complaints Commission review of the subsequent actions of the police.

In the aftermath of the new verdicts, Wright said the force’s legal team pursued “denials of the past” and blamed “mythical, late and drunken” fans for the deaths during the inquest.

The Guardian view on the Hillsborough verdicts: a triumph for truth and solidarity | Editorial Read more

“The evidence over the past two years has been overwhelming, yet South Yorkshire police and their senior officers have tried to look truth in the eye and deny responsibility and shift blame on to others, in particular, innocent football fans,” he said.

It can now also be reported that the solicitor for 22 of the families, Elkan Abrahamson, told the Home Office on 16 March that he would call for Crompton to resign at the end of the inquests.

A week later, on 23 March, the chief constable announced that he would retire when his contract ends in November. Crompton has previously told the Guardian that his decision was not related to criticism of how the force conducted the Hillsborough inquests, or Abrahamson’s call for him to resign.

After the verdicts, the police chief read out a statement of apology – in which he said the force unequivocally accepted the verdict – but made no direct reference to his own position.



“On 15 April 1989, South Yorkshire police got the policing of the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough catastrophically wrong,” said Crompton.

“It was, and still is, the biggest disaster in British sporting history. That day, 96 people died and the lives of many others were changed forever. The force failed the victims and failed their families.

“Today, as I have said before, I want to apologise unreservedly to the families and all those affected.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Crompton issues apology to families of Hillsborough victims. Photograph: Matthew Lloyd/Getty

Steve Rotheram, the Liverpool Walton MP who has also played a key role in campaigning for justice for the victims and their families, echoed Burnham’s call for accountability.

“Last time, a number of organisations apologised and soon withdrew those apologies. If we get the same apologies again, they were hollow last time, will they be hollow this time? We’ll be calling in parliament for those really responsible to be made accountable.”

During the long-running inquest, family members regularly became unhappy about the way the police force responded. A statement released by lawyers for the families on Tuesday said: “It is therefore all the more shameful that, rather than focusing on the search for truth and despite having made public apologies, the approach to the inquests taken by South Yorkshire police and the Yorkshire ambulance service was to fight tooth and nail to avoid adverse findings by the jury.

“This turned the inquests into an adversarial battle that probably doubled the length of time it might otherwise have [taken].”

Trevor Hicks, a former chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG) who lost two teenage daughters, Sarah and Victoria, in the crush ahead of the Liverpool v Nottingham Forest FA Cup semi-final, said that the “same old lies” had been peddled during the inquests about ticketless fans, alcohol and hooliganism.

The jury found definitively that the behaviour of fans did not contribute to the disaster. “That is one thing we did think had been put to bed once and for all by the independent panel report,” said Hicks. “The police case was non-existent. So they dredged up the same old sludge and tried to throw it yet again. Thankfully, it hasn’t stuck.”

Michael Mansfield QC, who represents 77 families from the HFSG, paid tribute to their tenacious 27-year fight for justice and also criticised the approach of South Yorkshire police to the latest chapter.

“Before these inquests commenced, there were profuse apologies on behalf of the South Yorkshire police. Apologies for what happened as well as lies told. You’d think that would have been reflected within the inquest system. But it wasn’t,” he said.

'This affects all football fans': readers react to the Hillsborough verdict Read more

Patrick Roche, who also acted as a barrister for the HFSG families, said the inquest had for the first time considered the role of South Yorkshire metropolitan ambulance service (SYMAS), which has since been superseded by the Yorkshire ambulance service.

The previous inquest had erroneously set a cut-off time of 3.15pm, so the response of the emergency services was not considered. The jury found “serious failures” in its response had probably contributed to loss of life.

Roche was heavily critical of the way SYMAS had approached the inquest, having already also previously apologised following the 2012 independent report that led to the new inquests.

“During the inquest over the past two years, SYMAS have done their best to row back on their apology and done their best to play down their obvious incompetence,” he said.

The current head of Yorkshire ambulance service has said he is “truly sorry” and admits that lives could have been saved at Hillsborough if its response had been different. Rod Barnes, chief executive of Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said the service fully accepted the jury’s conclusions and he extended his deepest sympathy to the bereaved families.

Charlotte Hennessy, whose father, James, died, said the emergency response from both the police and South Yorkshire ambulance service had been “hopeless” and they had “failed the 96”.

In legal submissions in 2014, which can now be reported, the families objected to questioning by Fiona Barton QC, representing South Yorkshire police, which they believed was seeking to avoid responsibility. They argued that the jury should be informed of Crompton’s full 2012 apology and the force’s previous admissions of negligence for causing the disaster.

Crompton said in September 2012, after the report by the Hillsborough independent panel, that South Yorkshire police had failed the victims and families at Hillsborough, lost control and that afterwards senior officers had sought to change the narrative of what happened.

“Disgraceful lies were told which blamed the Liverpool fans for the disaster,” Crompton said then, in an apology that remained on the force’s website throughout the inquests, until it was taken down earlier this year.

Barton said in court that Crompton had not given her instructions to “put a positive case” but to “extract facts” from witnesses. She objected to the 2012 apology or previous admissions of negligence being included, arguing that the inquests were new legal proceedings involving the jury hearing evidence for the first time. The coroner, Sir John Goldring, accepted that position.

Earlier this month, the families’ lawyers asked him to write a formal “prevent future deaths” report to Theresa May, the home secretary, arguing that South Yorkshire police’s conduct of the inquests showed the force had not learned the necessary lessons since 1989.

The families’ lawyers also called on Goldring to write a similar report to the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, arguing that the chief executive of Yorkshire ambulance service did not stand by previous acceptances of responsibility for failures made in the response to the crush at Hillsborough, including shortcomings accepted in 2012.

Pete Weatherby QC, representing 22 families whose relatives died in the disaster, argued that the two organisations unnecessarily prolonged the inquests and the suffering of the families. He said: “Despite their public stance, both [South Yorkshire police and Yorkshire ambulance service] have sought to minimise their responsibility through their conduct in these inquests, to the extent that the jury is unaware of any acceptance of responsibility or fault. This institutional defensiveness risks subverting the process.”





Facebook Twitter Pinterest Relatives of victims at a press conference after the Hillsborough inquest verdicts. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Weatherby produced a detailed list of examples in which he said Barton was seeking to emphasise alleged misbehaviour by supporters, including allegations of people spitting, and not responding to police instructions. He accused the ambulance service of seeking to avoid criticism of its response to the emergency “in the face of overwhelming expert evidence to the contrary, and admission” and of seeking to argue that a prompter response would not have made a difference anyway, because all the 96 people who died were beyond recovery at an early stage.

Both Barton and Jenni Richards QC, representing YAS, argued that Goldring should not send such reports. Barton argued it was not relevant to preventing future deaths, as the safety at football grounds has hugely improved following Lord Justice Taylor’s recommendations after the 1989 disaster. YAS rejected Weatherby’s criticisms and argued that it conducted the inquests “to make sure that all relevant evidence about the emergency service response on the day and the subsequent evidence gathering process is before the court.”

Goldring ruled earlier this month that he would not write such “prevent future deaths” reports, deciding that however South Yorkshire police and YAS conducted the inquests, it did not mean that safety lessons have not been learned since 1989.