The South Yorkshire Police Federation has caused outrage by calling the IOPC’s Hillsborough report “a significant waste of taxpayers’ time and taxpayers’ money.”
Well this taxpayer is fine with their money (£150 million) being spent to hold people in positions of power to account if needed.
On Tuesday, after 13 years of work, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) released a report into the Hillsborough disaster that is critical of the police.
It named 12 officers who would have faced gross misconduct hearings if they weren’t now retired or deceased.
• READ: Police watchdog release Hillsborough report – 12 officers named & 327 statements altered
The match commander on the day, David Duckenfield (left), was charged with gross negligence manslaughter in 2017 but he was cleared in 2019 at a retrial, after the jury in his first trial was unable to reach a verdict (PA Archive)
The union for the South Yorkshire Police (SYP) said in a statement:
“The report is a significant waste of taxpayers’ time and taxpayers’ money. It is not fair or balanced.
“Former police officers – some of whom are very elderly and some who have sadly passed away – do not have any kind of due process or the ability to formally respond to the allegations made in this report.
“These are opinions of the IOPC essentially being dressed up as statements of almost fact. We emphasise that these are just allegations.
“Our former colleagues do not have and have not had the right to reply to any accusations. They should not face trial by media.
“It is with this context that we should rightly question the value of this much delayed report and its multi million pound cost to the public purse.
“This report doesn’t help anybody involved in the Hillsborough disaster. Our thoughts remain with all those affected by this terrible tragedy.”
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Saturday, November 30, 2019: Liverpool supporters on the Spion Kop display a banner "We Told You They Lied - Justice for the 96" remembering the 96 victims of the Hillsborough Disaster as the lies told by the Sun newspaper, before the FA Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Brighton & Hove Albion FC at Anfield. (Pic by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
The statement is callous and shows how little the mentality of the SYP has changed in the 36 years since the disaster.
Former chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG) Margaret Aspinall, who lost her son James, rightly reacted with anger.
She told Sky News: “They say some of the officers have died. Oh, well my son didn’t reach the age of 85. He died for no reason.
“To reach an old age like they have, how lucky are they? How dare they insult us like that.”
Meanwhile, Charlotte Hennessy, whose father James died at Hillsborough, said: “Well our loved ones didn’t get to live to have that privilege. We refute their contention that they have not had the right to reply.
“Our understanding is that anyone named to the report would have either been interviewed or had the opportunity to respond to any criticisms levelled. Shame on every single one of you.”
The SYP Federation’s line about them not wanting to “face trial by media” is particularly callous, given the Hillsborough victims had their reputation dragged through the mud in the press largely due to lies told by the police themselves.
IOPC deputy director general Kathie Cashell said the 97 unlawfully killed, their families and survivors “have been repeatedly let down before, during and after the disaster.”
She added: “First by the deep complacency of South Yorkshire Police in its preparation for the match, followed by its fundamental failure to grip the disaster as it unfolded, and then through the force’s concerted efforts to deflect the blame onto the Liverpool supporters, which caused enormous distress to bereaved families and survivors for nearly four decades.
“They were let down again by the inexplicably narrow investigation into the disaster conducted by West Midlands Police, which was a missed opportunity to bring these failings to light much sooner.
Calls to strip knighthood from Norman Bettison
Former police chief Norman Bettison was Chief Inspector at the SYP in 1989 before controversially being appointed Chief Constable of Merseyside Police in 1998.
Ian Byrne MP for West Derby has tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons urging Prime Minister Keir Starmer to immediately recommend to the King that Bettison be stripped of his knighthood.
This is “for the reason he is unworthy to retain it and in order to preserve the integrity of the honours system; and expresses the importance of this action to Hillsborough families and survivors, given that this action is the only remaining meaningful sanction Bettison can face, owing to his retirement from the police service in 2013, as officers who retired before 2017 cannot face charges despite IOPC conclusions.”
He was awarded his knighted in 2006 for ‘services to policing’.