Hillsborough survivors ‘intimidated by police’

Liverpool fans trying to escape overcrowding at Hillsborough in 1989

Newsnight said it was the first time supporters had questioned how officers from West Midlands police took their statements.

A total of 96 people died when a crush developed on an overcrowded terrace of Liverpool fans at the Leppings Lane end at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium in an FA Cup semi-final tie with Nottingham Forest in April 1989.

The Hillsborough Independent Panel reported in 2012 that scores of accounts from South Yorkshire police officers had been altered in what it is claimed was a deliberate effort to heap blame on fans rather than the police.

Two inquiries are under way into the disaster. Operation Resolve, led by former Durham Chief Constable Jon Stoddart, is investigating whether fans were unlawfully killed, and the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is looking into the conduct of police in the aftermath of the disaster.

The BBC reported that Nick Braley, who was a teenage student at the time, said that when he told West Midlands officers three weeks later that South Yorkshire police failings had caused the disaster he was told he could face prosecution.

Another, who the programme did not name, said he was lucky to survive the disaster and helped carry bodies from the scene.

But he said officers refused to let him read his own statement which he was told to sign. He said he felt physically intimidated and powerless.

The West Midlands force declined to comment pending ongoing inquiries and forthcoming inquests into the deaths which will begin being heard in Warrington in March.

The IPCC says it expects to interview people as suspects as part of its inquiry into the conduct of police in the aftermath of the tragedy. It says 242 officers’ accounts of what happened on the day are thought to have been amended.

Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is also subject to a separate investigation in relation to public statements made over whether he gave an account to an earlier inquiry.

After the disaster, Lord Justice Taylor was appointed to conduct an inquiry into the tragedy. He sat for a total of 31 days and published two reports.

A complaint against Sir Bernard, who was on duty at Sheffield Boys’ Club where families waited to learn the fate of their loved ones, is already being investigated by a criminal inquiry.