Hillsborough Football Stadium Disaster (15 April 1989) & Verdict (26 April 2016)

[Michael Barwell]

Nice insight from the i-paper a few days ago:

[Michael Barwell]

Very closely related to Hillsborough is the Orgreave thing; img from the 'paper here 'cos it's the same tactics, the same people, the same force:

[Michael Barwell]

(Had to drop this in here, rather than bloggins 'cos it wouldn't fit, and it's interesting, brief & relevant to quite alot that's going-on atm)

Undercover policing inquiry: Why it matters Dominic Casciani Home affairs correspondent - 28 July 2015 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33682769
The allegations of wrongdoing by undercover police officers that have emerged since 2011 have been extraordinary.
That steady stream of stories has led to the launch of a major public inquiry into their activities.
The breadth and nature of what is being alleged is almost too big to grasp, but it fundamentally comes down to a simple question of whether elements of the police were out of control.
So, here are seven key themes and allegations that lie in the road ahead - and some of the real practical and legal problems the inquiry faces.
1. The undercover relationships
Some police officers had relationships with women whom they met within the protest movements they had been deployed to infiltrate. Last year, the Metropolitan Police paid one woman who had a child with an officer £425,000 in compensation.
There are approximately a dozen civil claims for damages before the courts amid allegations that officers were expected to have relationships as part of their cover identity.
But how many did so and under what circumstances? This is a huge challenge for the inquiry.
How will it find out and inform the public if the undercover officer involved remains unknown, there are no records and, crucially, the partner never had any suspicions?
2. The use of dead children's names
During the 40-year history of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) - the police unit at the heart of many of the allegations - officers used 106 "covert identities". According to a published police review, some 42 of them were almost certainly taken from children who had died - and the parents did not know about it. In 2013, a senior officer said the practice wasn't sanctioned by Scotland Yard - yet it seemed to have gone on for years.
How many names were used? Who authorised it? Should the parents have known?
If the names of the dead children are revealed, will that identify the officers the police want to protect?
3. Miscarriages of justice
The undercover affair has so far led to more than 50 convictions being quashed after a failure to disclose that officers had infiltrated protest groups later accused of criminality.
The two largest cases relate to environmental protests at power stations, both of which involved Mark Kennedy, an officer with the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. He would drive protesters around, effectively facilitating demonstrations later found to have broken the law.
A review for the Home Office said there could be a possible further 83 miscarriages of justice - although its author, Mark Ellison QC, couldn't be sure there were not more.
So will the inquiry look at allegations that officers lied in court?
John Jordan was convicted over his role in a protest in 1996 - but was cleared on appeal in 2013 after it emerged that his co-defendant was Jim Boyling, an undercover officer. The officer even gave evidence in character. Jordan has been taking legal action for a full explanation of what happened.
4. Monitoring of MPs and trade unions
Peter Francis, the only former SDS officer speaking publicly, says that Scotland Yard kept intelligence files on MPs during the 1990s. During his time in Special Branch, he says he saw files on 10 Labour MPs which he and others would regularly update.
So what did that monitoring amount to? Was the information on MPs incidental, gathered as part of watching campaign groups? Or did some Scotland Yard chiefs want deeper intelligence on the MPs?
Separate allegations have emerged that undercover officers also gathered information on some trade union activists.
5. Stephen Lawrence campaign
The most toxic allegation so far has been that Scotland Yard had a "spy" in the Lawrence family camp. He later had a meeting with a senior officer helping to prepare Scotland Yard for the public inquiry into the London teenager's murder.
The exact nature of what information was gathered, why it was gathered and how it was used remains unclear.
The then Metropolitan Police Commissioner and now peer, Lord Condon, has said that had he known of the existence of such undercover action in relation to the Lawrences, he would have stopped it.
6. The effect on the officers themselves
Peter Francis spent four years deep undercover and he eventually became mentally ill, suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. Today, he says some of what he was asked to do was wrong - and he wants senior officers to account for the way they deployed officers like him. He is not the only officer to have had concerns about the ethics of their work.
Phase two of the inquiry is expected to look at the "operational governance and oversight" of undercover operations, including how officers are selected, trained, managed and cared for.
7. NCND and anonymity
The most important acronym in this inquiry stands for Neither Confirm Nor Deny. It's a legal position adopted by the police and other security agencies in cases involving protection of undercover officers or sensitive sources. The first potential legal battle will come if police will refuse to admit whether or not they had officers deployed in specific circumstances.
Official reports have already revealed the existence of some of these undercover officers - such as the one who was in a campaign group close to the Lawrence family - but they remain anonymous.
If officers remain in the shadows because, quite simply, they were incredibly good at their job, police chiefs will almost certainly argue that the public interest lies in protecting their anonymity because of their legal duty of care.
Ende.

[Michael Barwell]

South Yorkshire Police spend £2.1m on chief's Hillsborough costs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sou...e-36517918
By David Rhodes BBC News 14 June 2016

South Yorkshire Police spent at least £2.1m on legal fees representing its suspended Chief Constable David Crompton during the Hillsborough Inquests, the BBC has discovered.
Mr Crompton's barrister alone was paid over £1m to represent him.
Several victims' families complained to the police watchdog about Mr Crompton's conduct during the inquests.
They claim the chief constable "instructed his legal team to pour blame on to Liverpool fans".
South Yorkshire's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Dr Alan Billings said the legal costs - which were footed by the taxpayer - were a result of the length of the inquest, which began in March 2014.
Police chief's legal costs
Hillsborough Inquest spending breakdown
£2.1m
on legal fees representing former Chief Constable David Crompton
£1m
paid to his barrister
· £25.1m total cost of inquest
· £20.8m paid by the Home Office
· £4.3m paid by the police force
Source: South Yorkshire Police
Getty Images
BBC News uncovered the costs after analysing thousands of data entries on theSouth Yorkshire Police's public spending log.
The final figure is likely to be higher as data covering February to April 2016, when the inquest finished, has not yet been published.
The inquests jury concluded all 96 Liverpool football fans who died at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final in Sheffield were unlawfully killed.
The day after the inquest, Mr Crompton was suspended from service and Dr Billings is currently undertaking proceedings to dismiss him from the service.
Mr Crompton, along with eight former police officers, was awarded concerned persons status by the coroner ahead of the proceedings, entitling him to legal representation paid for by the taxpayer.
Mr Crompton issued an apology for the disaster hours after the conclusions of the inquests and said he accepted the findings.
But in May, Jackson Canter Solicitors acting on behalf of 20 bereaved Hillsborough families submitted a complaint to the Independent Police Complaint Commission (IPCC) about Mr Crompton's conduct during the inquest.
They allege he instructed his legal team to try and pour blame onto Liverpool fans meaning the inquest proceedings were lengthened, public money was wasted and the distress of the Hillsborough families heightened.
The IPCC said it is in receipt of the complaint and has been in contact with Dr Billings about determining how best to investigate it.
Margaret Aspinall, who lost her son in the disaster, said the process of funding legal fees related to the disaster has been unfair from the beginning.
"It's a disgrace when you think about all the money that has been spent and the police have had over a number of years and we didn't get any help whatsoever apart from these last two years in court," she said.
lan Billings suspended David Crompton the day after the jury returned its verdicts in the Hillsborough Inquests
Dr Billings says the decision about the legal representation of David Crompton was made by the former PCC of South Yorkshire Shaun Wright who resigned from the post amid the fall out from the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal in September 2014 - six months after the inquest started.
"The advice given to me was that if I came in and changed those arrangements in an attempt to save money then I could have opened the force up to future legal challenges, which could have cost us even more money," he said.
In a statement on behalf of Fiona Barton QC it was confirmed that between 1 October 2013 and 26 April 2016 she was paid a total of £1,035,673.33 for her services representing David Crompton during the inquest.
Using other data from the police log and a Freedom of Information request, the BBC has established the remainder of the £2.1m spent representing Mr Crompton went on other individual legal representatives.
secretary had long campaigned with the Hillsborough families for justice
Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham has called for the creation of a "Hillsborough Law" which would ensure legal funding for bereaved families at inquests where police are involved.
South Yorkshire Police have previously confirmed the total cost of the Hillsbrough Inquest reached £25.1m - of which £20.8m was paid for by the Home Office and £4.3m was paid by the force itself.
Dr Billings expressed his disappointment about the amount of public money spent on the inquest process.
"We'd already had the Hillsborough Independent Panel which reached the conclusion it did," he said.
"I just think it's such a shame the inquests were drawn out for such a long period of time and therefore all of that money, or a great deal of that money, could probably have been saved".

Ende