Demands grow to put cover-up police in dock

South Yorkshire Police said it is now “reviewing” matters raised in the damning Hillsborough Independent Panel report “with a view to making a referral to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)”.

As it emerged that almost 200 officers who were on service at Hillsborough still work for the force today, demands from the 96 victims’ families that prosecutions must follow the publication of the report were echoed by a former South Yorkshire Chief Constable.

Richard Wells, who took up the post in 1990 – the year after the tragedy – said he was “disappointed and angry” at the discovery that more than 100 police statements were doctored to remove negative comments about the force’s response.

“I swallowed, maybe to my own regret now, the prevailing account that (only) emotional, non-evidential material had been removed,” he said. “It does seem much more intense than that. A group got together to make it better than it was.”

Asked if prosecutions should happen, he replied: “It is absolutely essential. I don’t know how practical it is going to be now. But the inquest, if that is reopened, may help to shed further light on the details.”

However, Dewsbury MP Simon Reevell, a practising lawyer in West Yorkshire, told the Yorkshire Post that he believes a string of prosecutions is highly plausible.

“It seems to me that even now this would be a perfectly straightforward thing for the police to investigate,” he said.

“Police often reopen old cases, murders or sexual assaults for example, where they do not have a shred of paper evidence to help them.

“In this case there is a group of known and identified police officers who changed their statements.

“There is a clear paper trail and it is straightforward investigation.”

Liverpool MP Andy Burnham yesterday echoed the demands of the victims’ families that a new inquest also be opened after the original inquiry in 1990 was found to be fatally flawed by the independent panel,

“The families have waited 23 years too long for the truth, so there now must be no delay in bringing justice and accountability,” the Labour MP said. “We need a new inquest that looks at the original statements of police officers on duty that day, and not the statements that were amended and skewed by senior police officers.”

His party colleague Yvette Cooper said a separate investigation into South Yorkshire Police was also required.

The Shadow Home Secretary and Normanton MP said: “Clearly the inquest must focus on the terrible loss of life, and will not focus on the subsequent misinformation and altering of evidence.

“That is why we are asking the Home Office to set out a proper separate investigation into the cover-up and what happened in South Yorkshire Police, including looking at criminal offences.”

Asked whether David Cameron would support a criminal investigation, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “It is for the relevant authorities to make decisions based on the evidence.

“There was a report published yesterday and they also published hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence. It is obviously going to take some time to consider that. But it is a matter for the police and prosecutors as to whether there is a criminal investigation, just as it is a matter for the IPCC to make a decision on whether to look at issues of police conduct.”

The Hillsborough Family Support Group lawyer, James Saunders, proposed an oversight panel of public figures be set up to give the families confidence that the right steps are being taken.

The panel would be made up of public figures agreed by the families and have full access to all investigations and prosecutions.