Hillsborough: Collapse of Trials

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, in cases like this, it is important to distinguish between the institutional response—which in many cases was either lacking or appalling—and the individual response of individual police officers, emergency service workers and others who went out of their way to assist in the most distressing of circumstances.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, what have the Government learned about the process of justice and public confidence in law, when a trial can collapse one day and a defence counsel stands in the street outside the court and maintains unequivocally that this proves that there has not been a cover-up, yet almost the next day the police admit such cover-ups and compensation is duly paid?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, as Prime Minister David Cameron said when he made the apology in the other place, the families

“suffered a double injustice: the injustice of the … events”

themselves,

“the failure of the state to protect”

them

“and the indefensible wait to get to the truth;”

and also the offence of

“the denigration of the deceased.”—[Official Report, Commons, 12/9/12; cols. 285-86.]

When I was at the Bar, it was generally regarded as unwise or sometimes improper to comment publicly about your cases. I certainly commend that approach to anybody who says anything about the acts of the Liverpool fans. The Sun itself had to provide a full apology. It well behoves everybody else to read the Bishop Jones inquiry if they want to find out what the truth actually is.