Hillsborough police chief cleared of manslaughter

The former South Yorkshire police chief superintendent David Duckenfield has been found not guilty of gross negligence manslaughter more than 30 years after he commanded the police at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, at which 96 people died.The verdict came in a retrial that began on October 7. A first trial on the same charge, heard by the same judge, Sir Peter Openshaw, ended on April 3 with the jury unable to reach a verdict. Duckenfield was charged in June 2017 following a new police investigation into the disaster, Operation Resolve, and verdicts of unlawful killing returned by the jury at the 2014-16 inquests in Warrington.The original 1991 inquest verdict of accidental death was quashed 21 years later following a long campaign by bereaved families and the September 2012 Hillsborough Independent Panel report.The jury in Preston heard that the lethal crush developed in the central “pens” 3 and 4 of the Leppings Lane terrace, after a buildup of people at the turnstiles with tickets to support Liverpool. Due to the selected method of keeping the two clubs’ supporters separate, only the 23 turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end were used to process all 24,000 people with tickets for the north and west stands allocated to Liverpool. Of these, only seven turnstiles were available for all 10,100 people with tickets to stand on the Leppings Lane and north west terraces.Duckenfield had been newly promoted by South Yorkshire police to chief superintendent 19 days before the semi-final and had never before commanded a match at Hillsborough. The experienced previous chief superintendent, Brian Mole, had been moved to command the division at Barnsley.The court heard that at the match on April 15, 1989, a backlog built up at the turnstiles after the police, under Duckenfield’s command, did not manage fans’ approach with filters or cordons. No successful measures were taken to alleviate the crush that developed after 2.30pm; at 2.47pm, superintendent Roger Marshall, on duty at the turnstiles, requested the large exit gates to be opened to allow people respite. Duckenfield declined, then at 2.52pm Marshall warned that somebody would die if the gates were not opened. Duckenfield then gave the order to open the gates.Gate C opened on to a concourse with a tunnel directly ahead, leading to the central pens. Many of approximately 2,500 people who came through gate C, including 30 of the people who were killed, went down the tunnel. The prosecution alleged that Duckenfield’s failure to identify hazards at the turnstiles, monitor the numbers waiting to come in, relieve the pressures outside, monitor the numbers in the central pens and direct people away from the tunnel and central pens, amounted to gross negligence.