'A bitter injustice': no officers will face discipline over Hillsborough

Families' anger as police watchdog ends 14-year inquiry into disaster

- David Conn Raphael Boyd

The families of those who died in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster have said it is a "bitter injustice" that no police officer will ever be held accountable for a catalogue of failings set out in the final report of the police watchdog after a 14-year investigation.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that 12 police officers, most of them senior, would have faced disciplinary cases of gross misconduct if they were still serving.

However, no former officer will face disciplinary proceedings because they have all retired. Some, including Peter Wright, the chief constable of South Yorkshire police at the time of the disaster, have died.

Steve Kelly, whose brother Mike, 38, died at Hillsborough, said: “No one should be beaten by the passage of time. We should have truth, justice and accountability, at least within a person’s lifetime.”

Margaret Aspinall, whose son James, 18, was one of the 97 people killed at Hillsborough, said: “How lucky are they [the police officers] to have died in their own home, not traumatised like we all were. The youngest who died at Hillsborough was 10. How lucky are they to grow old. I’m so angry with their response.”

Ten of the men whom the IOPC said would have faced gross misconduct cases were in the South Yorkshire force, including senior officers responsible for safety at Hillsborough.

The IOPC listed six gross misconduct allegations against Wright, including for seeking to minimise the force’s responsibility and deflect blame on to the victims, who were Liverpool football club supporters.

Two other men were senior officers in West Midlands police, which was appointed to investigate the South Yorkshire force after the disaster. Mervyn Jones and Michael Foster would have faced allegations of “failing to investigate effectively” and were “biased against supporters in favour of South Yorkshire police”.