Hillsborough document release

[Hemibr 10]

No. The police officers who allegedly lied are, I guess, mostly still alive.

 

The one who lied on oath on Sept 7th 98 and relied on a false instrument is and it seems he was part of the clan who came through the ranks with the Bettison and Hogan Howe era which Graham Storr writes about.

 

To date there has been a police refusal 1998 to date to visit chambers of embarrassed counsel offering evidence of perverse justice but then again that has been police policy with the liverpool fans.

 

It will be interesting over the coming months to establish whether the S Y Force genuinely has moved on and whether it s prepared to purge itself of the criminals still in situ and for the most part in high office.

[Mr Bloom 10]

The one who lied on oath on Sept 7th 98 and relied on a false instrument is and it seems he was part of the clan who came through the ranks with the Bettison and Hogan Howe era which Graham Storr writes about.

 

To date there has been a police refusal 1998 to date to visit chambers of embarrassed counsel offering evidence of perverse justice but then again that has been police policy with the liverpool fans.

 

It will be interesting over the coming months to establish whether the S Y Force genuinely has moved on and whether it s prepared to purge itself of the criminals still in situ and for the most part in high office.

 

Perhaps you could present your case to the new police commissioner.

[Hemibr 10]

Perhaps you could present your case to the new police commissioner.

 

Done that - and crime stoppers - and IPCC -and MP shed loads of evidence but same criteria as Ryan Giggs and Jimmy Savile - too high up the greasy pole to be handled until the public get fed up of the law in action and start looking for a little justice............ and it appears to be happening certainly for Hillsborogh families and thats a start but lets not kid ourseves that the bent cops were restricted to that one event.

 

The Hillsboro families have had the best legal team money can buy and its still take 23 years for the cops to look at the evidence as opposed to doctoring and burying.

 

Banned from using civil courts (not sure if police were complicit in that or not) but they cannot be unaware of the fabricated evidence of the former cop - plebgate style.

 

I am watching closely as to how the fabrictor of the evidence in plebgate is dealt with incase the MET have a more proactive policy for purging bent cops than S Yorks police.

 

---------- Post added 03-01-2013 at 22:03 ----------

 

Also remarkable similarities with Rebecca Brooks and her access to the inner workings of the met -

 

Mine is identical to that but with S Y Police and a female civilian having inappropriate access to police held info and a subversive use for it although whether it was paid for i am not sure.

 

Given that i was offered a bribe in the early stages then it is possible a bribe will have been offered to obtain that info from one or more corrupt officers.

 

Only the police could be able to confirm or rebutt the reasons as to why access was granted but it must have been pretty obvious what the info was required for as per Rebecca Brooks..

[Jeffrey Shaw 90]

The one who lied on oath on Sept 7th 98 and relied on a false instrument is and it seems he was part of the clan who came through the ranks with the Bettison and Hogan Howe era which Graham Storr writes about.

 

To date there has been a police refusal 1998 to date to visit chambers of embarrassed counsel offering evidence of perverse justice but then again that has been police policy with the liverpool fans.

 

It will be interesting over the coming months to establish whether the S Y Force genuinely has moved on and whether it s prepared to purge itself of the criminals still in situ and for the most part in high office.

A good point. At one time, people relied on Police veracity; but the child-abuse scandal in Rotherham and the Hillsborough scandal damage their reputation enormously.

[rossyrooney 12]

South Yorkshire Police (and i suspect many more)have long been a law unto themselves.

[InigoMontoya 10]

Straight outta Crompton…

[rossyrooney 12]

I fear the whole truth will never be known.

[alchemist 37]

Straight outta Crompton…

 

He was right though wasnt he?

[bonwebuk 10]

No. The police officers who allegedly lied are, I guess, mostly still alive.

 

They should be brought to Justice...

[alchresearch 215]

I fear the whole truth will never be known.

 

I reckon we'll have enquiry after enquiry for years if not decades to come, where each time it will swing in slight favour one way or the other.

[pottedplant 10]

I reckon we'll have enquiry after enquiry for years if not decades to come, where each time it will swing in slight favour one way or the other.

 

I don't think either "side" will fully accept the "truth" of the other so reckon your predication will be accurate.

[mikem8634 10]

He was right though wasnt he?

 

No, he was not.

 

He sent that e-mail on the 8th September 2012 four days before the Independent Panel Report was released on 12th September 2012

 

One month later he gave the following testimony to the Home Affairs Select Committee.

 

The most generous conclusion that can be drawn is that he was unaware of much of the material in the report and even a handful of days before it was released was still in the thrall of elements of the black propaganda campaign that have now been discredited. He then read the report and experienced a Damascean conversion. I hope this is true.

 

A more cynical appraisal of his rather radical change of tack between e-mail and select committee? I will leave that to others for the moment.

 

I have highlighted passages of interest and further underlined the items which are particularly telling.

 

 

Part One

 

HOUSE OF COMMONS

 

ORAL EVIDENCE

 

TAKEN BEFORE THE

 

HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

 

HILLSBOROUGH INDEPENDENT PANEL REPORT

 

TUESDAY 16 OCTOBER 2012

 

CHIEF CONSTABLE DAVID CROMPTON AND DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR PHILIP ETHERIDGE

 

SHEILA COLEMAN

 

RT HON LORD FALCONER QC, MARGARET ASPINALL, TREVOR HICKS AND JENNI HICKS

 

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 119

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

 

1.

 

This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.

 

2.

 

Any public use of, or reference to, the contents should make clear that neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.

 

3.

 

Members who receive this for the purpose of correcting questions addressed by them to witnesses are asked to send corrections to the Committee Assistant.

 

4.

 

Prospective witnesses may receive this in preparation for any written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee.

 

Oral Evidence

 

 

Taken before the Home Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 16 October 2012

Members present:

 

Keith Vaz (Chair)

Nicola Blackwood

Steve McCabe

Alun Michael

Bridget Phillipson

Mark Reckless

Mr David Winnick

________________

 

EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES

 

Witnesses: Chief Constable David Crompton, South Yorkshire Police, and Detective Chief Inspector Philip Etheridge, South Yorkshire Police, gave evidence.

 

Q1 Chair: Can I call the Committee to order and welcome our witness today, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire? Could I refer all those present to the Register of Members’ Interests where the interests of all members of the Committee are noted. Are there any other interests that need to be declared?

 

Alun Michael: I should declare as an interest that I am intending to stand as a candidate for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections on 15 November in relation to South Wales.

 

Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Michael. As this is Mr Michael’s last meeting as a member of the Select Committee, on behalf of the Committee could I also thank him very much for all the work that he has done on the Home Affairs Select Committee and the Justice Select Committee, and wish him well in his election?

 

I move now to the subject matter of today’s inquiry. This is not a new inquiry into Hillsborough; this is for the Committee to be updated on progress since the Independent Panel’s report. I am most grateful to you, Chief Constable, for coming here today to give evidence. Would you like to put on the record your views of the Independent Panel’s report? When you first read it, what was your reaction?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: My reaction, Chairman, was shock. I read that as the head of an organisation that had been held very much to blame over the years, and also, once the Panel’s report came out, that was all brought together in one comprehensive document. I was shocked. It was a very difficult day. I made that very clear to the media on the day. It has remained a difficult experience since then, and it will continue to be a difficult experience for quite some time.

 

Q2 Chair: What is morale like in the South Yorkshire police force at the moment?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: People are feeling a little beleaguered. In fairness, the minority of the force were even serving at the time of Hillsborough, and not all of the people who are currently in the force and who were around then were at Hillsborough in any way, shape or form. Inevitably when you get an organisation that becomes the focus of lots of negative media attention then it is difficult for people. So, yes, people are going around with slightly heavy hearts, but these are serious issues.

 

Q3 Chair: We realise and we accept that you were not there during those times-you served in other police forces-but you were very clear when you spoke to Newsnight on the day of the report. You said this, "My position is very simple and straightforward, which is that if people have broken the law then they will be prosecuted." Do you stand by that statement?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Absolutely, yes. In one sense it is not a revelation for any police officer to say that if somebody has broken the law, they should be prosecuted, and I absolutely stand by what I said.

 

Q4 Chair: Presumably you have looked at the report in great detail and you have been following this whole issue from the time that you were appointed Chief Constable. I know it was very recently, but clearly when you took over you knew that the Panel was meeting. Do you have any idea as to how many people may be responsible and may have to be prosecuted?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: That is an impossible question to answer at this stage, Chairman. I am sure Committee members will be aware that this matter was referred to the IPCC not just by me but by other police forces as well. The IPCC made a lengthy press statement on Friday where they made clear in quite some detail the issues that they were going to look at. That process has been set in motion. I am on the record on several occasions having said that I will co-operate in any way at all I can to assist the IPCC with their endeavours, which will probably be lengthy and complex.

 

Q5 Chair: That is the process that this Committee wishes to follow from now on. We would like to see regular updates as to what is happening with regard to these matters. Do you accept the findings of the report that 164 statements have been altered by senior officers in the South Yorkshire Police? Do you accept what the report said on that?

Chief Constable Crompton: Yes.

 

Q6 Chair: You do. Is it right that there are now 195 serving officers in South Yorkshire who were on duty on the ground on the day of the Hillsborough tragedy, or is that figure too high or too low? We are just interested in the facts.

 

Chief Constable Crompton: My understanding was that the figure was nearer 100 and that we currently have about 200 officers who are serving in the force who were in the force at that time, but not necessarily at Hillsborough. My understanding was that the figure was lower than that.

 

Q7 Chair: Let us get the figures right; 100 currently serving South Yorkshire police officers were at the ground on the day in question?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Yes. I don’t know if it is exactly 100, but a figure around about that. Some of those officers were on duty right from the outset, other officers-once things had gone wrong-were drafted in to try to deal with the aftermath, and that led to the sorts of numbers that you just referred to.

 

Q8 Chair: When I wrote to you, in your reply to me you referred to an "alleged cover-up". You will recall your letter to me just after the report was published. Do you still believe it was an alleged cover-up rather than anything more? Why have you added the word "alleged" before cover-up, when the Independent Panel is quite clear that the statements were altered?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: That might well have been the old habits of a police officer coming out. Things are alleged ultimately until they are proved from that perspective, and although there is very significant information and detail in the report, we are now involved in a process that will either ultimately prove or not whether there was a cover-up. I don’t mean it to sound disrespectful to anybody; it was merely a technical detail.

 

Q9 Chair: You accept what the panel report has said, that there was a cover-up and that statements were altered?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: I definitely accept that the statements were altered, yes.

 

Q10 Chair: Taking us through the process now, the IPCC are conducting their own very detailed inquiry. You know you have 100 police officers who are currently serving. Do you know how many former police officers who were employed by South Yorkshire you have on your files whom you may need to consider?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Considerably more than 100, Mr Chairman.

 

Q11 Chair: Do you know how many?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: If I said 600 or 700, that would be in the region. People are aware if they have read the report that in the region of 1,000 police officers were on duty at the game on the day. They were not all South Yorkshire police officers, although the vast majority were. Just to give you a general figure for people to work with, there are several hundred retired officers who may come within the ambit of this inquiry.

 

Q12 Chair: That is very helpful. Thank you very much for trying to be specific on that. If we could look at the process, what exactly are you doing? We know there is an IPCC inquiry. What are you doing to send to the IPCC those cases you have described as being people who may need to be prosecuted? Are you going through this person by person, file by file, and who is doing this, bearing in mind the resources that you have? You are talking about 1,000 police officers, either serving or former police officers, so how is that process being put together?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: So far the IPCC have only asked us for details of officers who are either currently serving, who were there, and of retired officers, and those who may no longer be around because they have died. In terms of trying to complete their records, we are in the process of supplying that information. As far as detailing which particular members of staff or officers or former officers should be looked at for which particular offences, I have to be clear and say we are not doing that.

 

Q13 Chair: You are not doing this?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Let me explain, please. Prior to the referral process I talked through at length with the IPCC about what might be the best long-term objective in doing this. I came to the view, and it was supported in the end by the IPCC, that the less South Yorkshire Police has to do with any referral process, given the general context we are working in, the better in the long-run for the inquiry. Let me elaborate just a little bit more. As I said, my concern is to assist the IPCC as much as possible. The issue for me was less about whom we might refer but whom we might decide not to refer, and at some later stage it would probably have been highly likely that someone would have said, "Well, we really don’t agree with your reasons for not referring these people."

 

Chair: Yes. So you are not doing that process?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: No.

 

Q14 Chair: What are you doing, just giving the names and address and the files and leaving it up to them?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Yes, because I still have a team who are very familiar with the archive and all of the material that has been supplied by the force, I have said that we will provide the IPCC with any material that by one means or another they feel is relevant but for whatever reason they might not have had so far.

 

Q15 Chair: So you will hand over a list of names of the serving officers and the former officers who were there on the day, but you will take no part in assessing whether or not they were culpable for anything on that day, is that right?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: That is right, and I think that is the best way of going about it.

 

Q16 Chair: How long will that process take?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: We can complete that process quite quickly.

 

Chair: What does that mean?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Within a week.

 

Q17 Chair: Within a week of today you can give them the lists of names that they require?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Certainly the vast majority anyway.

 

Q18 Chair: When do you think you can give them the complete list?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Probably in a week, but if I said a fortnight, that would be reasonable.

 

Chair: Two weeks from today you would have done your work and handed it to the IPCC?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Yes.

 

Q19 Chair: One final question from me. You know that today the Attorney General has announced that he is going to apply to the High Court for fresh inquests. Presumably you fully support that decision?

 

Chief Constable Crompton: Yes. The families wrote to me two or three weeks ago and I wrote back and made it very clear that we would not oppose any request to reopen the inquests. I asked the families to proceed on that basis so that it did not introduce either any extra difficulties or costs into the system.

 

Chair: Thank you.

 

 

 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhaff/uc622-i/uc62201.htm