The Inquests 1: Bolt from the blue

Everybody knows the Hillsborough verdict. After 27 years, the families finally got justice. An inquest which lasted two years, a record in English law, resulted in the jury saying that the 96 people who were crushed to death at the Hillsborough stadium in 1989 were unlawfully killed. To call this an epic turnaround in the legal system is an understatement.

The verdict of Unlawful Killing overturned a verdict of Accidental Death which a previous inquest had passed in 1991 - and it is almost impossible to describe the pain which that first verdict caused to the families and friends of those who died and to people like myself who narrowly escaped death at Hillsborough. We knew it was wrong. We knew Hillsborough was no accident and that its many causes, but notably police incompetence and negligence, had been repeatedly covered up ever since.

People close to the inquest knew that literally thousands of people - family members, survivors, campaigners, lawyers - did their bit to bring about the new and just verdict. There were many high profile campaigners you won't need me to name, but there was equal commitment from innumerable survivors who relived difficult memories to give fresh statements and many took to the witness stand at Warrington and before that at the first inquest and at the Taylor inquiry.

But what nobody, even those involved throughout the inquest knows, is that a small group of survivors and campaigners campaigned behind the scenes on an aspect of the verdict which, had it gone against the survivors, would undoubtedly have cost lives.

We'll never know exactly how much influence we had in heading off that danger, and I want to be clear upfront that we don't claim any more than that we did our best, as thousands of others have, to try and help bring justice for not just the 96, but for the thousands of fellow survivors appallingly labelled by the SYP as having contributed to the deaths of their fellow fans.

Ours was just one piece in a huge jigsaw, but a significant piece nonetheless, and I do want to record our little gang and our efforts we made and how the system was stacked against us at every step of the way. How we were denied legal representation at the inquests and how we sought to bring pressure on the Coroner at the very time he was reviewing his critically important summing up of the evidence. It is indicative, I believe, of how the British legal system is stacked so heavily in favour of those with vested interests and against the ordinary member of the British public. But before you (as others have done) label me an agitator or someone with a grudge, read for yourself our experiences and make up your own mind.

We need to go back three years to the quashing of the verdicts. The Lord Chief Justice in so doing completely exonerated the fans and asked that the inquests be fact-finding rather than adversarial. His wish was that organisations and individuals would accept this, would defend their corner and that the Coroner's legal team could lead the jury through the evidence to enable the inquests to find the correct cause of death.

The preamble to the inquests takes some time, but we are confident they will find the truth. This time the discredited SYP are now largely ex-police officers. The Coroner won't apply the bizarre and hugely contested 3.15 cut off. The families' legal teams will be state funded, and it won't be the West Midlands Police preparing the testimony etc. for the Coroner.

At this point, I am actually living/working in Lagos Nigeria, so am a bit out of touch, but I follow the Liverpool Echo updates and am delighted to read that the HFSG lawyers will include Michael Mansfield. He needs no introduction and is, imho, one of the finest lawyers in our country.

The formal list of Interested Parties is many, with legal teams for the SYP, for the Police Fed, for the match commanders (Duckenfield, Marshall and Greenwood) and for Duckenfield's bosses (Jackson, Anderson and Hayes). They announce fairly early on they will be introducing alcohol and other aspects of fan behaviour into the proceedings, and we wonder what they have up their sleeve? If it is the same old SYP lies, well Taylor discredited at them, as did the HIP authors and the Lord Chief Justice. As did the Prime Minister come to think of it.

Either way, I am overseas so trust in the legal teams for the families and hope they can do the necessary to defend our corner. After all, the 96 dead were fans, they travelled with survivors, they drank in the pubs with them, they stood outside the turnstiles, they entered the stadium and stood on the same terrace with survivors. The only difference is that in the lottery of Pens 3 and 4, 96 fans were crushed to death.

Over time, and the testimony is all available to read, I grew more and more confident. Initially I was exasperated at the seemingly constant references to Heysel, to hooliganism and to alcohol by John Beggs (Duckenfield's main man) who seemed to throw in references to hooliganism at every opportunity. Over time, it is clear that even the Coroner was getting fed up of this and rumours circulate of a big falling out between Beggs and the Coroner. Indeed you only have to read the cross examination of Kenny Dalglish, where three times proceedings are halted for “legal arguments” when Beggs is cross examining Dalglish. It is clear reading between the lines that Beggs is doing all he can to mention hooliganism and the Coroner is getting fed up with him.

As an aside, if you want to know exactly what Beggs thinks is reasonable in a court, then read the Guardian report of his cross examining the parent whose daughter died at Deepcut. You can make your own conclusions as to the sort of person he is.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/08/deepcut-death-evidence-soldier-cheryl-james-did-not-kill-herself

The most momentous testimony over the course of the inquests is of course from David Duckenfield. He gives evidence over I think 7 days and is finally broken by the legal teams' persistence. He admits his errors and crucially that those errors caused the deaths. He also admits himself that his conduct fell below that expected of him. Game over we thought, or it should have been.

In the autumn (2015) I meet with a journalist who wishes to do an interview for transmission post verdict. He has seen many of the closed sessions (that you can tell people about, but may not publish or put on social media in case the jury hear of them) and informs me that the only cause of death under consideration is “Unlawful Killing” and that this is the only option the jury will be asked about. Now this is game over surely? If the evidence pointed even maybe to accidental death, surely this would be a question for the jury to consider? I leave the interview very happy, increasingly confident we are looking good.

About this time I start to meet socially with some fellow survivors / campaigners – to support ourselves as only fellow survivors can. We all have a common bond – yet we all have unique experiences too. We were all young men, unprepared with what we were going into. We all, at various times struggled with our demons and a couple of us had spent time in the cells following confrontations with the police.

Yet we were all unique too. Ade had struggled in the pen, been really poorly treated by the WMP and had struggled to cope with things. Tim had gone with 10 mates, only 7 coming home. I still don't understand how strong Tim is, so sure that it would have broken me losing a mate, let alone three. Richie had escaped and had carried bodies like Ade. Tim and Ade had been in the gym, something I was mercifully spared. Richie had also given evidence at both inquests. And I had my WMP experiences which seem so utterly disgusting reading them back.

So it's good to talk, to share, self-counselling in effect, at a time when Hillsborough was literally in the news (or the Echo at least) every day if you wanted to know about it. As people effectively labelled murderers by the SYP, we were very interested in it, fair to say.

So it is that we came together a fateful day in December, in a pub in London where we meet with the express intention of discussing the making of a documentary. Our stories are so strong, so powerful, so shocking and yet so few people understand. We had approached a few people in the media and had had some interest.

But at this point, everything changed. We arranged to meet up for a beer with a man who has spent some considerable time attending the inquest. He knows the families and lawyers well, is very well informed as to how proceedings are going and has some power behind the scenes. Starting that night and continuing to the present day, we referred to him as the Man In The Pub, (the MITP), as he wishes to remain anonymous and we continue to respect that wish.

The purpose of meeting him that night was to learn first hand how things were progressing. Given his connections, we are a bit in awe of him if truth be told. Ade has met him a couple of times but that is pretty much that. We meet in a pub before we meet the MITP and Ade is looking glum. Until that point, we had all been on the same page, aware of the jury only being asked about unlawful killing and happy we will soon see inquests with the right result

What's up Ade? He starts to explain that the MITP will know more, but it looks like the Coroner is trying to shaft us, trying to apportion a share of the blame on the fans. I stand in stunned silence, disbelieving what I am hearing. Why would he do that we ask, and plenty of theories abound. Another bent freemason? A mate of the SYP. He's been knobbled? Who knows but one thing we are adamant of is we aren't just going to accept a share of the blame and go “Ok then”.

The MITP turns up slightly later and confirms our worst fears. The Coroner has introduced a question, number 7 of 14, specifically relating to fan behaviour. “Did the fans cause or contribute to the deaths.” Worse, he has introduced a supplementary question, “If not, may the fans have caused or contributed...?”

What does 'may have' mean? We either did, or we didn't. What the fck does 'may have' mean? Tell me one case where a jury has been asked whether something 'may have' happened? It's ambiguous and it's an invitation to the jury to shit on us. We come to the conclusion we are being set up, set up to take a share of the wrap due to a Coroner who seems to think we will accept it. There will be an almighty shitstorm if we cop the blame. People won't be able to cope with it. Some survivors over the years have committed suicide, you want half a dozen more? Just to keep a load of bent SYP happy and placate their legal team? Really?

The implicit trade off seems to have been done, The families get unlawful killing, the SYP get to say that the crush outside the turnstiles was caused by the fans, not their own incompetent lack of planning.

We promise the MITP that we are not idiots. We may not have the influence of top lawyers etc. but we are all intelligent, educated and most key, we are determined. We are not being labelled murderers, it is isn't happening. We all agree we need to influence the Coroner, we need to make sure he understands that if he shits on the fans, there will be an almighty shitstorm.

And so it started, 5 determined Survivors, Survivors with attitude start to work on a plan. How can we get the message to the Coroner that he can't just shit on us. We may not be represented at the inquests, we may not have legal teams defending our corner, but you are going to get the most almighty shitstorm if we are labelled murderers, solely on the basis of the testimony of corrupt SYP officers.