Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced on Wednesday that six people, including former police officers, will face criminal charges over the country’s worst-ever football disaster in 1989, in which 96 fans died.
The CPS said criminal charges are to be brought against six people, four of them former senior police officers from the South Yorkshire Police force. Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, who was the match commander on the day of the tragedy, is to face a charge of manslaughter of the fans by gross negligence.
Norman Bettison, a former senior officer with South Yorkshire Police and subsequently Chief Constable of Merseyside and West Yorkshire Police is to be charged with four offences of misconduct in public office.
Former Chief Superintendent Donald Denton and former Detective Chief Inspector Alan Foster will be charged with perverting the course of justice.
Two civilians, Graham Henry Mackrell, who was Sheffield Wednesday Football Club’s company secretary and safety officer at the time of the disaster in 1989 and Peter Metcalf, the solicitor acting for the South Yorkshire Police during an inquiry into the disaster as well as the first inquests will also face charges. They are due to appear in court next month.
The tragedy happened at the Hillsborough Football Stadium in Sheffield on April 15, 1989, when Liverpool met Nottingham Forest in a cup semi-final game.
On the day of the tragedy, police ordered a gate to be opened to contain a surge of fans and in the crush that followed the fatalities occurred.
It led to one of the country’s biggest ever campaigns for justice by families of those who died, this lead to a new inquest which ruled that the fans had been unlawfully killed.
Relatives of the victims gathered in Warrington in northern England to be told of the outcome of major investigations by the police and the CPS.
Leading campaigner Margaret Aspinall, who lost her 18-year-old son in the disaster, said: “Hopefully this is the journey to the end, completely, of Hillsborough.”
Following the new inquest, which concluded in April 2016, evidence relating to 23 suspects were referred to the CPS to decide whether charges should be brought.
Mrs Aspinall, chairwoman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said waiting for the decisions had been “a long, long struggle for everybody”.
“It will be a long road, but the families are determined to never give up. All we want is accountability, nothing more and nothing less.”
The youngest victim to die was aged just 10 and the oldest 67, with 78 of those killed aged 29 or under.
Liverpool City Council has granted the freedom of the city to all 96 victims, the first time ever the city’s top civic honour has been granted posthumously. Campaign leaders also received the honour.
At Anfield Stadium, home of Liverpool FC, an eternal flame is at the centrepiece of a memorial to the victims
