Hillsborough panel makes first visit to archive

THE group set up to study previously secret documents relating to the Hillsborough tragedy have seen for themselves the scale of the archive they have to examine.
By The Newsroom
Published 2nd Mar 2010, 22:55 BST
Updated 2nd Mar 2010, 22:55 BST

The Hillsborough Independent Panel is overseeing the public disclosure of archives held by the emergency services, the city council and other public bodies in Sheffield.

The documents relate to the disaster in April 1989 when 96 Liverpool fans died in a crush at Hillsborough Stadium after going to see their team play Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final.

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The panel – chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev James Jones – was set up last year after the 20th anniversary of the tragedy.

Yesterday the group visited the archives in Sheffield to look at where the documents are being held and to talk to staff involved.

The Bishop said the archive of about 600 boxes of material was "daunting" in its size but he praised the work which has already been done to bring it together.

Afterwards, the Bishop said: "The reason we're doing this is because this is the principal purpose of the panel, which is to oversee the maximum possible disclosure of the documents which are contained in the Sheffield archive. This was our first opportunity of walking through the archive and seeing the shelves of material."

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"It's a very large archive. I'm very impressed by the way the archive has been kept."

He added: "It is daunting and that's when you realise you need a team. There's no one person that can do this."

The panel convened for the first time in Liverpool earlier this month and met representatives of Hillsborough victims' families.

The Bishop said the panel's tasks were to ensure the maximum public disclosure of the documents and to write a report detailing their contents.

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The group will complete the task by making recommendations about a national archive of the Hillsborough documents.

The Bishop has said they would "leave no stone unturned" in their

search for the truth.

Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry into the disaster, which reported in 1990, criticised senior police officers on duty at the match for a "failure of control" and recommended the introduction of all-seater stadiums.

Related topics:HillsboroughLiverpoolSheffield