Call for Hillsborough police prosecution

14 Sep 2012, 6:25 am   -   Source: AAP

British police are under growing pressure over the cover-up surrounding the Hillsborough soccer stadium tragedy.

Pressure is growing for the police officers responsible for the Hillsborough cover-up to face prosecution.

As South Yorkshire Police considered referring itself to the police watchdog, the former MP revealed as one of the sources behind The Sun's controversial coverage of the tragedy said he was "deeply and sincerely sorry".

But ex-Sheffield MP Sir Irvine Patnick insisted he had been given "wholly inaccurate" information by officers.

A damning report by the Hillsborough Independent Panel revealed a cover-up took place to shift the blame on to the victims and that 41 of the 96 lives lost at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium on April 15, 1989, could have been saved.

Patnick said he was "appalled" at the extent of the cover-up surrounding the disaster that saw Liverpool supporters die in a crush at the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest.

The panel found that 164 police statements were altered, 116 of them to remove or alter "unfavourable" comments about the policing of the match and the unfolding disaster.

South Yorkshire Police, which still employs 195 officers who were on duty at Hillsborough on the day, said the force "is currently reviewing a wide variety of matters raised in the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel with a view to making a referral to the Independent Police Complaints Commission".

The force added that it was looking in detail at the material released by the panel and its report before making a decision on whether any specific matters should be referred to the IPCC, the police watchdog.

Earlier, Sir Norman Bettison, the most senior serving police officer who was involved at the time, said he had "nothing to hide".

The former South Yorkshire inspector, who is now Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, also claimed fans at the stadium had made the job of the police "harder than it needed to be".

The comment appears to contradict Wednesday's report by the Hillsborough Independent Panel, which said fans played no part in the unfolding disaster.

Bettison said: "Fans' behaviour, to the extent that it was relevant at all, made the job of the police, in the crush outside Leppings Lane turnstiles, harder than it needed to be.

"But it didn't cause the disaster any more than the sunny day that encouraged people to linger outside the stadium as kick-off approached."

Margaret Aspinall, chairwoman of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, who lost her son James, 18, in the tragedy, called for Bettison's immediate resignation.

"He is still saying the fans made the job more difficult for the police. He ought to be ashamed of himself," she said.

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