Criminal Justice System: Families Bereaved by Public Disasters

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I beg to move

That this House has considered proposed reforms to the criminal justice system to better respond to families bereaved by public disasters.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this timely debate about learning the lessons of the Hillsborough disaster so that never again will families bereaved by a public disaster have to endure the more than three decades-long ordeal of the Hillsborough families. It is about changing the law to ensure that what happened to them can never again happen to any families bereaved by a public disaster.

I begin by noting that, since the final criminal trials arising from Hillsborough collapsed in May, Mr Andrew Devine sadly died, aged 55, as a direct result of the catastrophic injuries that he received in the crush at Hillsborough in 1989. Liverpool coroner André Rebello recorded a verdict of unlawful killing following his death, which confirms that Andrew Devine is the 97th victim of the Hillsborough disaster. It is only right that his name is read aloud and noted in this place, as were the other 96 by Steve Rotheram, the former Member for Liverpool, Walton, in a debate in the House in 2011.

Hillsborough was a national disaster, not just a disaster affecting Liverpool or a disaster affecting football, and the lessons to be learned are applicable far beyond the circumstances around it.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way on that important point. The debate is obviously centred on Hillsborough, but the lessons apply to other public disasters such as the contaminated blood scandal. The people who have been infected and affected by that scandal stand in solidarity with what she proposes: to ensure that no other family ever has to go through what the Hillsborough families have gone through.

[Maria Eagle]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend. It is true that there is a much broader application for the lessons learned from Hillsborough as they relate to other disasters.

The last of the criminal trials relating to Hillsborough collapsed in May, some 32 years after the event. It is surely a catastrophic failure of our criminal justice system that it took so long while still failing so badly to do justice to those who died, their families, those injured and the traumatised survivors. There is something very wrong with how our legal system handles public disasters. Thirty-two years after 97 people were unlawfully killed at a football match, primarily through the gross negligence of the South Yorkshire police—that was proven at the second inquests to a criminal standard of proof—no one has been held to account through our criminal justice system for those killings. For 32 years, those responsible for the disaster have sought to blame the victims and survivors for what happened and deny their own culpability.

It took 23 years for the truth to be acknowledged, following the work of the Hillsborough independent panel in 2012. It was fortunate that the panel was even set up to do its work following the 20th anniversary memorial event. Earlier that day, Andy Burnham and I, as Ministers in the Brown Government, and with the permission of the Prime Minister, launched our joint call for all documentation relating to Hillsborough to be published to facilitate transparency. The Hillsborough independent panel was established with the powers of a data controller only because of insight from Lord Michael Wills, who was then in charge of freedom of information at the Ministry of Justice. Only because of that formulation was the truth about what happened on that terrible day finally able to be revealed incontrovertibly, with documentation. Only because of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)—I am glad to see her in her place—was it allowed to complete its work after the change in Government in 2010. It would have been easy to cancel it at that point, but she did not. For that, she deserves great credit.

It should also be noted that the Hillsborough independent panel was a non-legal process and that it worked by making use of openness and transparency. As a consequence of its work, the original inquest verdicts of accidental death were quashed, but it took 27 years for correct inquest verdicts of unlawful killing to be recorded. Families had to fight for 23 years for the truth to be officially acknowledged, but to this day no one has been held to account for the Hillsborough slurs and the decades-long smear campaign that was conducted by those responsible, the South Yorkshire police, to deflect blame from themselves on to the innocent victims—the dead, the injured and the traumatised survivors.

As Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron apologised to the families in 2012 for the smears they had endured over what was then a 23-year period. From the Dispatch Box, he said that

“these families have suffered a double injustice: the injustice of the appalling events—the failure of the state to protect their loved ones and the indefensible wait to get to the truth; and then the injustice of the denigration of the deceased—that they were somehow at fault for their own deaths. On behalf of the Government and indeed our country, I am profoundly sorry that this double injustice has been left uncorrected for so long.”—[Official Report, 12 September 2012; Vol. 550, c. 285-286.]

That full and unequivocal apology was made nine years ago. That should have put a stop to the self-serving lies by the representatives of those who were at fault, but it did not.

Since evidence began to be heard at the new inquests in April 2014, there have been legal proceedings that have required the families to maintain a public silence to avoid prejudicing them, yet the apologists and defenders of the South Yorkshire police and of the individuals responsible for what happened on that day have not been silent. They have reiterated the smears for which the Prime Minister apologised to the families in 2012, and they have done so inside and outside the courtroom. We must change the law to stop this kind of cruel abuse, perpetrated by a public authority using taxpayers’ money over decades, from ever happening again.

We must stop legal proceedings arising out of disasters from lasting for decades and from going so wrong, because once things go this wrong, our legal system appears to find it very hard to put things right. We must give the collective voice of the bereaved families agency in the proceedings that inevitably follow a disaster. We must search for the truth using transparency as a key tool, not allow the legal forums to become a way for moneyed vested interests to set about evading their responsibility for the disasters they have caused. The Public Advocate Bill, which I have introduced again into the House—I have been doing so for a number of years, as Lord Michael Wills has done in the Lords—will do that.

It is timely to have this debate because I know that the Government are now considering their response to Bishop James Jones’s 2017 report into the lessons to be learned from Hillsborough, which was commissioned by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead. I hope that, as part of the response to that, the Minister will agree to legislate for an independent public advocate. I know that the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland) was very sympathetic. I am sorry to see that he has lost his place in the Government as I think he was very sympathetic to this call.

My Bill seeks to put bereaved families collectively at the heart of the response to disasters through the establishment of an independent public advocate, who if the bereaved families wish it, will act as a representative of their interests, an adviser and a guide. The advocate, as a data controller, would be able to establish a panel, like the Hillsborough independent panel, to facilitate transparency about what has happened at an early stage. Crucially, this would give the families the capacity to decide collectively on an initiative that would put them at the heart of events, instead of feeling, as bereaved families often do, that they are a mere adjunct to proceedings. This enforced transparency, shining a light into the darkest recesses of the reaction of public authorities caught up in disasters, would torpedo attempted cover-ups and do so at an early stage.

Let me be clear: this role would not replace that of more traditional legal advocates—barristers, solicitors—who would continue to act for individuals in specific legal proceedings; it would fulfil a different and an additional role. The proposal would not require new institutional arrangements or place any burden on the Exchequer. It would not require an open cheque book. On the contrary, the transparency it would bring could save millions of pounds in drawn-out adversarial proceedings over many years or decades.

I am pleased to have the support of many of the most prominent and active members of the Hillsborough Families Support Group who have written a letter published today in the Daily Mirror. They say:

“We are members of families bereaved by the Hillsborough disaster more than 32 years ago who have been active in the campaign for truth and justice.

It took us 23 years of relentless campaigning to have the truth about what happened to our family members finally officially acknowledged. It took 26 years to get accurate inquest verdicts of unlawful killing. The collapse of the criminal trials in May means that after 32 years no-one responsible has been held to account by our criminal justice system for the unlawful killings of 97 innocent children, women and men.

We do not want any other families to endure what we have had to go through simply because they are caught up in a disaster through no fault of their own.

We believe that an independent Public Advocate as proposed by Maria Eagle MP and Lord Michael Wills would stop families bereaved by public disasters in future from ever having to go through what we have had to endure over the last 32 years.

We note that the Government of Theresa May consulted on establishing such an office in 2017 but the proposal appears to have been dropped by the current Government.

We hope that the Lord Chancellor will use the occasion of the debate in the House of Commons on September 16 to announce the creation of an independent Public Advocate as promised in his 2017 manifesto. We consider that such a change will be an important part of the legacy of the 97 and of our long and hard campaign for truth and justice.”

As the Government are considering their response to Bishop James’s report, I say that I know, because he has told me, that he is fully supportive of the establishment of an independent public advocate. He told me that he has been persuaded by his experience of meeting families involved in other disasters, such as Gosport and the infected blood scandal, that such a position is necessary. I am very supportive of his own findings. In particular, three recommendations of his are key: the proposed charter for families bereaved through public tragedy, equality of arms at inquests and the statutory duty of candour. These measures are undoubtedly valuable, and the Government should adopt them. However, I think the only way of preventing disasters going so catastrophically wrong over decades is to establish an independent public advocate. The families back this reform, Bishop James backs this reform and the Conservative party had it in its manifesto in 2017, so I hope that all of us across the House can get behind it and legislate for it now.

I was first elected to this House, over 24 years ago, on 1 May 1997. The first of my new constituents to contact me shortly after were the bereaved families of those who had been killed in the Hillsborough disaster then nine years earlier. They had by that time already endured almost a decade of legal actions, including the Taylor inquiry, the first inquests, civil claims, decisions not to discipline or to prosecute the South Yorkshire police commanders in charge on that day, judicial reviews of various such decisions, appeals and every other kind of legal action imaginable, such that it seemed even then as though there was little chance of further recourse for them through our legal system.

I met four of the Hillsborough Families Support Group committee in the home of one of them in my constituency. I met Phil Hammond, who lost his son in the disaster and was then chair of the Hillsborough Families Support Group. I met Jenni Hicks, who lost both her daughters in the disaster. We met in the home of Doreen Jones, who lost her son and his fiancée, and very nearly her daughter too. I also met Trevor Hicks, who was prominent then in the campaign.

I was struck by the raw pain and deep anger of Phil Hammond. I still remember it; it was as if he was reliving the day of the disaster—as if it had been yesterday—in minute detail as he talked, yet this was nine years on, and almost all possible legal avenues had already been tried and had failed the families in getting to the truth or achieving justice for the bereaved. He was so appalled and upset at the fact that he felt that his young son who had been killed was being blamed for what had happened to him when he was a wholly innocent boy and that those responsible, South Yorkshire police, were not intent upon telling the truth and learning lessons, as Lord Justice Taylor had exhorted them to do, but were instead engaged in the callous pursuit of blaming the victims of the tragedy, no matter what pain and hurt they caused in the process.

While we had a tea break in our meeting, I overheard Trevor Hicks telling Jenni that he had been contacted by a new witness who perhaps had some information about one of their two young daughters and what had happened to her during the missing hours between their going into Leppings Lane and the confirmation that both of them had been killed. I was struck by the fact that this basic information was what the inquests were supposed to have provided to the grieving families, but the inquests came nowhere near fulfilling that basic purpose. It was not until the second inquests began, a full 17 years after this meeting, that our legal system even tried to answer those questions for the bereaved families.

I knew how wrong things had gone, how thoroughly the families had been let down and their loved ones, Liverpool fans and the survivors traduced, and I have tried to do all I can to help them and other families ever since. They have all been central figures in the Hillsborough families’ fight for truth and justice, along with many others, and I want to take this opportunity to say that without their unbelievable efforts over so many years the truth would not have been acknowledged and the correct inquest verdicts would not have been handed down. Their achievements and those of other families and representatives, such as Margaret Aspinall, Sue Roberts, the indefatigable Anne Williams and others too numerous to mention, are monumental. Their fortitude, dignity, persistence and determination had to be seen to be believed. They have needed all of those qualities for all of the 32 and a half years that it has taken.

This year the Hillsborough Family Support Group has disbanded, knowing now that they can do no more. They have the truth and they have achieved a measure of justice, but there has been no accountability. They have, between them, all truly done everything they possibly can for their lost loved ones. Now it is up to those of us in this House and Ministers in this Government to learn the lessons that their commitment, their fortitude and their togetherness over such a long period have taught us. We owe it to them to get it right: we owe it to those 97 people unlawfully killed by the gross negligence of South Yorkshire police on that day in 1989 to make sure that what has happened to these bereaved families and survivors can never happen again to families bereaved in public disasters—and there will be more disasters; there have been.

The establishment of an independent public advocate will help to achieve that. I call upon the Lord Chancellor, the Home Secretary and the Government to heed those who really do know best, the Hillsborough families themselves, and use the occasion of this debate to announce that they will now do what they said they would in 2017 and establish an office of the independent public advocate. Now is the time to move forward and implement those learned lessons of Hillsborough and at long last change the law to prevent what went so wrong in that case from ever happening to any other families again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle]

I thank the Minister for his response and the information that he will now be responding to the consultation. “By the end of the year” is a little disappointing. I appreciate that there has been a change of Lord Chancellor and that always delays things, but it should be remembered that we will be heading towards 33 years by then.

As I think the Minister should have understood from the debate today—including the powerful contributions from a survivor of Hillsborough, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), and from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—the power of the emotions expressed indicates quite what an impact these events have. The small, cheap, relatively speaking, reforms that have been proposed will make a real difference. The introduction of a public advocate, and three or four proposals in the report from the former Bishop of Liverpool, will make a real difference to bereaved families and survivors. They will be a monument to the powerful campaign—which has continued for 32 and a half years so far—of the Hillsborough families, the survivors and those who have been bereaved and affected by this terrible disaster.

I hope that the Minister will remember the emotion and power of the speeches because something really must be done. Just coming back in December and saying, “We will have a code of conduct” will not cut it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

It has truly been an honour to be in the Chair during this debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered proposed reforms to the criminal justice system to better respond to families bereaved by public disasters.

Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Position

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

As my right hon. Friend knows, the job of any lawyer for any client is generally to assist the client to make decisions as to the balance of risk in any decision that they are about to take. There is no question but that the absence of a right of termination of the backstop presents a legal risk. The question whether it is one this House should take is a matter of political and policy judgment that each one of us must grapple with. The House has heard and, for reasons that I am not going here to expatiate upon, I have taken the view that compared with the other courses available to the House, this one is a reasonable, calculated risk to take. Other Members of this House must weigh it up, but that is my view.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

In response to some questions from Members of this House today, the Attorney General has asserted that in his view it would not be in the public interest to meet the terms of an effective resolution that was passed unanimously by this House. Can the Attorney General really take that view? Was it not incumbent upon him and the Government to vote against that resolution if he thought that it would be against the public interest to publish his advice, as he has asserted today?

[The Attorney General]

I fully understand the hon. Lady’s understandable indignation, because the truth is that we are now in a curious situation in which no vote was passed against that motion. I ask her to reflect on this: let us suppose that the Government had voted against it and lost. What position would that place us in? It would place me in exactly—[Interruption.]

Kevin Williams

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Main. For many people attending Westminster Hall today and for those watching at home, there may be confusion that after 118,000 people signed a Government e-petition, today’s proceedings are not being heard in the main Chamber of the House. People recognise the green Benches of the Commons, but understandably will be less familiar with today’s surroundings. The Government need to address that when public expectations are raised owing to a petition reaching 100,000 signatures. This debate could have happened in the exact same location and in the exact same format without a single person having signed the online petition. I feel some sympathy for the Backbench Business Committee because of the dilemma that it faces in looking for parliamentary time to debate such important issues—this is an important issue to hundreds of thousands of our constituents—but here, in the mother of Parliaments, what could be more important than justice? That is what we are trying to achieve today.

We are here to argue the case for the Attorney-General to review the overwhelming evidence relating to the unlawful killing of a young man—Kevin Williams. Some people have asked why we are back here again, following the success of the absolutely enthralling debate in the House on 17 October. It is simply because there are specific questions that still require specific answers. If there was a case in any other walk of life in which the police and members of the emergency services had altered statements, fabricated stories and covered their own backs, there would quite rightly be public outrage. Well, there is public outrage. The public of Merseyside and far beyond have been outraged for 22 and a half years, and it is time that the cynics who believe that we are

“like a blind man in a darkened room looking for a black cat that isn’t there”

woke up to what happened with the Hillsborough cover-up. For Anne Williams and her family, the backdrop to their individual tragedy is the same as that for the other 95 families—it is the dignified pursuit of justice.

In the limited time available, I will not repeat the sequence of events as laid out by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley).He has provided the necessary detail to illustrate the specific circumstances of young Kevin’s death, and I congratulate him on the way he went about that during his contribution. Despite successive Attorney-Generals and Home Secretaries dismally and consistently failing to act on this issue, there may be light at the end of a very long tunnel. Credit where it is due: I have to thank the current Home Secretary for her contribution, commitment and forthright action back in October. The Hillsborough independent panel is now accessing all the unrestricted and unredacted documentation that our cross-party consensus on that night secured. My hope is that the current Attorney-General will look afresh at the evidence in this case, as he has suggested that he will.

There are options for us as parliamentarians. We can go down the path of hyperbole and trying to hide behind complex legal argument and archaic parliamentary conventions, or we can adopt a simpler approach based on the elementary principle of right and wrong.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this case, of the many cases involved, illustrates just how appallingly inadequate the original inquests were in doing the job inquests are supposed to do: establishing the cause of death in each individual case and bringing a sense of closure to the relatives left behind? Does he agree that the 3.15 pm cut-off point and the accidental death verdicts were instrumental in creating the ongoing sense of deep injustice felt by families such as that of Anne Williams? That needs to be put right to put a stop to the suffering of people such as Anne Williams whose relatives died at Hillsborough.

[Steve Rotheram]

My hon. Friend is once again spot on with her forensic understanding of the issues. Her contribution in the debate on the Floor of the House highlighted her comprehensive appreciation of what happened at Hillsborough. She touches on two important issues. The first is that the original inquest was inadequate, and the hon. Member for City of Chester made absolutely clear why that is so. The second is the ongoing sense of injustice, which has resonated not only in Liverpool. The people who signed the online petition come from right across this country and from different political persuasions. They include football fans and people who are not interested in sport. People are beginning to understand what the people of Merseyside have fought for for 22 and a half years.

As a result of the overwhelming evidence, Kevin’s case proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the 3.15 pm cut-off point was simply wrong. It is fundamentally flawed and it does not stand up to scrutiny. For those who failed in their duty on that day, it has, quite literally, been their get-out-of-jail-free card. They point to the 3.15 pm cut-off and claim there was nothing they could do. How wrong they are. They could and should have saved Kevin Williams.

Since becoming an MP, I have wrestled with how best to explain to people who are not necessarily familiar with the Hillsborough tragedy exactly why it still matters. Twenty-two and a half years on from the disaster, some might wonder why their MPs are in this Chamber debating it. They could be forgiven for asking that, and many were not even born in 1989. As human beings, however, they must surely understand that this debate, this campaign and this dark chapter in British history are, and always have been, about broken-hearted mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters fighting for loved ones who went to a football match and did not come home.

All deaths are tragic, especially when they involve children. It is also true that Britain has experienced other national tragedies over the past three decades, but has there ever been a national tragedy in which no one has been held to account?

Ian Tomlinson

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I should say at the outset that I think that the first part of the hon. Lady’s question is based on a slightly false premise. The appointment of a pathologist is a matter for the coroner, not for the CPS. The first pathologist appointed in this case was appointed by the coroner—he has the power to do that. The hon. Lady will be aware from what was said by the DPP and from what I said a moment ago that much flows from that appointment. It is clear that a report was produced that provided an indication to lead to further reports that looked as though it might lead to showing a causal connection between the assault and the death but that subsequently a further factual statement from the pathologist first appointed by the coroner entirely undermined the basis on which any further expert view could be taken of the case by other pathologists. That is at the root of the problem.

As for the hon. Lady’s suggestion that in some way this case would have been treated differently had it involved the death of a police officer, I have no reason to think that that is the case. It is right to say that when the matter was first drawn to the attention of Her Majesty’s coroner, it might not have been apparent at that stage—because the video evidence had not become available—that this was not a sudden death on the fringe of the G20 demonstration rather than something that was intimately linked to it, as became clear when the video evidence became available.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I should like to thank the Attorney-General for the elaboration that he has given. It seems to me that the decision not to prosecute appears to rest on the divergence of medical opinion between the three pathologists who have conducted post-mortems, creating evidential problems for the DPP when considering the likelihood of proving a causal link between the push and the blow that, as we have all seen, were struck at Mr Tomlinson and his subsequent death. However, is it not the case that the decision of medical authorities to charge Dr Patel, the first pathologist, with 26 counts of misconduct is materially important?

The public will find it difficult to understand how the opinion of a doctor facing 26 charges of misconduct before the General Medical Council can in effect muddy the evidential waters in this very serious case to such an extent that a prosecution cannot proceed in a case where the public interest is not served, as I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman would probably agree, by such a decision.

Prosecuting authorities, of course, are rightly independent, but what powers of supervision does the Attorney-General have over their decisions? In view of the GMC’s charges against Dr Patel, has the Attorney-General asked the DPP to review his decision about whether to bring charges, given that the other two pathologists—Dr Cary and Dr Shorrock—agree that Mr Tomlinson’s death was a result of internal bleeding from blunt force trauma to the abdomen? If not, will he now do so?

I am sure that the Attorney-General agrees—and would say again—how important it is that justice is seen to be done, freely and fairly, with all being equal before the law. The unfortunate circumstances of this case do not appear to show that at present.

[The Attorney-General]

As for the hon. Lady’s last comment, I entirely endorse what she says. On her earlier comments, I am not in a position to make a judgment on the misconduct allegations that may pertain to the pathologist, Dr Patel, which I understand arise out of other matters. Neither am I in a position to comment on questions of expertise. As I tried to make clear a moment ago, this is about an issue of fact. Dr Patel carried out the first post-mortem examination, which included certain conclusions about blood in the abdominal cavity. Subsequently, he factually retracted those statements, or altered them markedly, putting a completely different complexion on what conclusions could be drawn from the evidence and whether, in particular, any connection could be made between the blow that one can see being struck on the video, the fall that followed and the actual cause of death. I understand that that lies at the root of the Crown Prosecution Service’s difficulties in this case.

The hon. Lady also asked about my powers of supervision and superintendence. I have those—they are my ability to ask questions. As she might appreciate, I have certainly had an opportunity to do that, but this is not my decision and I have not been in a position to review the evidence. As I said earlier, I have no reason to think, from anything I have heard, that this matter was not most conscientiously and fully inquired into with a clear desire to see justice being done. The decision is potentially open to being reviewed by means of judicial review—that could happen if someone wished it to take place—but I want to make it clear that on the basis of what I have been told and what I have discussed, but not on a review of the evidence, it seems to me that the CPS has acted with complete propriety in this matter and in trying to take it forward.