Party leader says he has had a ‘tough week’ and refuses to answer further questions about the football disaster

The Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, has denounced what he calls a “coordinated, cruel and almost evil smear campaign” that he claims has been run against him by people questioning his connection to the Hillsborough football tragedy.

Nuttall, who became leader last year, refused to answer questions from reporters asking him to prove he had been at Hillsborough as he took to the stage at Ukip’s spring conference in Bolton on Friday.

But he was supported by the party’s former leader Nigel Farage, who said he’d known since 2005 that Nuttall had been present at the 1989 football disaster. He blamed the Labour party for insinuations that Nuttall was not at the fateful match.

During a 16-minute speech at the Macron stadium, Nuttall said he had endured a tough week, having been forced to admit that claims on his website that he had lost close friends at Hillsborough were not true. A party press officer took the blame but Nuttall would not accept her resignation.



He said: “I take the blame for the fact that I failed to check what had been put up on my website. That is my fault and I apologise. But I do not apologise for what is a coordinated, cruel and almost evil smear campaign that has been directed at me.

“It is based in lies from sources who have not been named. It has been a tough week for me but I will not allow it to break me and I will not allow them to break Ukip.”

The 40-year-old Liverpudlian, who is trying to unseat Labour in the Stoke Central byelection, received a warm welcome from 300-400 delegates. “I was also asked by two journalists yesterday if I still had the support of my party,” he said, to cries of “yes!”, extended applause and a standing ovation. He looked surprised and took off his glasses, apparently wiping away tears.



Nuttall suggested he was being targeted because of next Thursday’s byelection. “We all know why this has happened and we all know why this has happened now. It is because of a byelection and the fact that we have the Labour party on the run,” he said.

Leaving the stage flanked by bouncers, he again refused to answer questions from the waiting media, saying simply: “I’ve said absolutely everything I want to say on the matter.”

One of Nuttall’s former teachers, a Roman Catholic priest, has told the Guardian that the school believed it had been aware of the identities of every boy who had been at Hillsborough in order to help them through a difficult period, and that Nuttall was not among them. A fellow pupil at the school who says he has been a friend of Nuttall for decades said the Ukip leader had never mentioned being there.

But speaking before his own conference speech on Friday, former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said Nuttall did not have further questions to answer about Hillsborough.

Farage also piled the pressure on Nuttall to win Stoke. “I don’t think anybody can underplay for one moment how important, how fundamental, that byelection is for the futures of the Labour party and indeed Ukip,” he said in his speech. “It matters hugely.

“I think the Labour party, questioning the fact he [Nuttall] was there, have questions to answer.”

Nuttall first mentioned to him that he had been at Hillsborough “when he [Nuttall] was about 26”, Farage said.

When the Guardian pointed out that at 26 Nuttall stood for the Conservatives as a candidate in Sefton and did not join Ukip until 2004, when he would have been 27 or 28, Farage conceded that he might have “been out by a couple of years” and said they first met in 2005.

After joining Ukip Nuttall moved to Brussels to work for one of its MEPs, John Whittaker, and lodged in Towler’s basement in the city.

Farage said Nuttall should not be blamed for not checking his own website: “I’ve never checked mine. Never. And I tell you what, I bet there is hardly anyone in frontline politics that checks everything that’s put out in his name.”

Last year Nuttall blamed a Ukip press officer for misleading statements on his website that said he had once been a professional footballer with Tranmere Rovers, when in fact he had only played for the club’s youth side. He also disowned his profile page on the LinkedIn social networking site, which implied he had a PhD even though he never completed his doctoral studies.

Suzanne Evans, Ukip’s health spokeswoman – who was beaten to the party leadership by Nuttall last year, said she believed Nuttall and that the “close personal friend” claim was forgivable: “It was clearly a mistake. Paul’s not the sort of person who tells fibs. There was clearly a mistake made, the person responsible for it admitted it, Paul’s been very magnanimous about that. Job done.”

Asked if she thought it curious that Nuttall’s schoolfriend had insisted he had never mentioned being at Hillsborough during his school days, Evans said: “No. Paul is in a catch-22 position. If he mentions it, he is exploiting it, if he doesn’t mention it, there’s something suspicious going on.”