South Yorkshire police boss mulls manslaughter move over Hillsborough cover-up

David Crompton said the force was looking into a number of issues to refer to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) following the release of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, including corporate manslaughter, manslaughter and misconduct in public office.

The chief constable also said questions should be raised about why the earlier Lord Justice Stuart-Smith report, which looked into the alteration of police statements, was accepted.

Yesterday South Yorkshire Police, which still employs 195 officers who were on duty at the ground on the day of the tragedy, said the force was considering referring itself to the IPCC.

Mr Crompton, speaking at a South Yorkshire Police Authority meeting in Barnsley today, said: “Clearly, there may be potential for corporate manslaughter, given some of the detail which came out the other day. That relates, of course, to how things were handled on the day and the view taken about the 3.15 cut-off point.

“In addition to that, there may, again potentially, be the possibility of manslaughter investigations against individuals.

“Again, these are only potentials, these are things we are looking at at the moment, I’m not saying that these are definitely things which are to be referred to the IPCC.

“In relation to alteration of statements, which has received a great deal of publicity this week, clearly, that is something that we are looking very closely at. It’s highly likely that that will form part of the referral to the IPCC.”

Mr Crompton added: “The other areas that we will be considering referring to the IPCC will be issues of misconduct in public office, also leaking information to the media, issues to do with the data protection act in relation to some of the checks that were done on the PNC.

“I do wish to make it absolutely clear that, although we haven’t worked out the full details yet, there will be a referral to the IPCC in the next couple of weeks. That is not in any doubt.”

Speaking about the Lord Justice Stuart-Smith report, an independent judicial review into the Hillsborough tragedy released in 1998, Mr Crompton said questions needed to be asked.

He said: “In that report, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith considers in detail the process by which statements were altered. He gives that process a clean bill of health in this report.”

He added: “That raises a number of questions because I fully support the view taken by the independent panel this week, which is if you write a statement that doesn’t contain all of the truth in it, then that is not right. And I fully support that and want to make my position completely clear.

“But, on that basis, there have to be questions asked about why the Lord Justice Stuart-Smith report was accepted and the recommendations in it were accepted. And that does have a bearing on some of the issues which have been raised about the alteration of statements this week.”