Hillsborough

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

One of the challenges of speaking at this stage of the debate is that so many hon. Members have made powerful and moving contributions. I do not want to repeat them, but I do want to make a couple of points, because, as a Sheffielder, I have always felt a sense of collective shame about the fact that this appalling tragedy took place in our city, and that justice seemed such a distant prospect for so very long and was frustrated by our local police force.

I join the tributes that have been made to the Liverpool families, whose courage and determination to see the truth are an example to us all in this House and beyond. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) said, and as a number of hon. Members have repeated, it is simply a scandal that it has taken us 23 years to get to this point. Having done so, however, it is vital that truth is followed by justice and that all those responsible for both the disaster and the subsequent cover-up are held fully to account.

I welcome the fact that in her opening remarks the Home Secretary drew a distinction between the South Yorkshire police of 1989 and the organisation of today. I am pleased that, under Med Hughes, the South Yorkshire police of today, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) pointed out, played a leading role in helping to uncover the truth, just as the force of the past played such a role in hiding it.

We have to recognise what different times those were and what a different culture existed in the police. As a number of hon. Members have pointed out, it was not just about an attitude towards football fans. As some of the later contributions have highlighted, many of us saw a culture in much of the police whereby they seemed to be above the law in areas such as Sheffield, south Yorkshire and the mining communities in our part of the country, and that that culture was almost encouraged by the then Government in the way in which the miners’ strike was handled. It is not just the South Yorkshire police force who were caught up in that. We need to remember that the Government at the time deliberately drafted police from other parts of the country into South Yorkshire police to ensure, as many people in our mining communities saw it, that the rule of law could be abandoned. One of the lessons of this terrible story is the danger of any part of the state feeling that it is beyond the law and accountability.

Just as we should distinguish between the force of today and the South Yorkshire police of the past, we should also distinguish, as the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) has done, between the role of individual policemen and women and the leadership of the force at that time. It is deeply unfortunate that, following the publication of the independent panel’s report, some in the press highlighted the fact that 195 officers on duty at Hillsborough were still working for South Yorkshire police, the implication being—this was not implied in the report—that they were somehow not fit to do so. We need to acknowledge that what went wrong at Hillsborough was a catastrophic failure of leadership, both at the stadium on the day and in the handling of events afterwards, and that ordinary policemen and women at Hillsborough were also let down by that leadership. Many of them went above and beyond the high standards that we expect of our police officers in their immediate response to the tragedy on the day.

I have two examples of that. PC Keith Marsh was a uniformed PC outside the Leppings Lane entrance on the day of the disaster and, on arriving at the fences there, he immediately joined the rescue efforts. He was able to get near the gate and drag a young boy, Lee Nicol, free from the crush. When he checked for a pulse, he was unable to find one and immediately began attempts to resuscitate Lee. It was clear that without oxygen or professional medical treatment, Lee was going to die. PC Marsh carried him to an ambulance and stayed with him to go to the Northern general hospital, still performing CPR. Eventually, he managed to get a response, but he was ultimately unsuccessful in saving Lee. Lee’s family were so grateful to Keith for his efforts that he was invited to be a pallbearer at their son’s funeral. Keith retired from the force as a detective sergeant, but has now returned as a member of support staff at Attercliffe police station.

PC Fiona Nichol was deployed on the trackside at the Leppings Lane end on the day of the disaster. She recognised the crushing and described seeing the terror on people’s faces as she opened a gate. Her first instinct was to protect a group of scouts who were in one of the pens. She reacted quickly and began to pull people out. Climbing up the fence, she pulled the body of a young boy out of the crush and began to give CPR, but sadly without success. She gave further assistance to other victims, giving CPR and pulling people out of the crowd.

On the 20th anniversary of the disaster, Fiona met David Gillooley, a Liverpool fan who was 26 at the time of the disaster. He told her:

“I saw you pull people out. I saw you pull big fellas out. And you kept pulling and pulling and pulling, and it got to the point where I could feel less pressure. Now, without a shadow of a doubt, that’s down to you.”

Fiona is another of the 195 officers who are still serving. She is now based in a response team in Barnsley.

Officers like those two were described as heroes by Trevor Hicks of the Hillsborough Family Support Group. It is important that, when we bring those responsible to justice, we do not tarnish the reputation or damage the morale of those who do not deserve it. Through accountability, we must strengthen confidence and trust in policing, not only in south Yorkshire, but across the country.