LONDON (AA) – Errors by police “caused or contributed” to the deaths of nearly 100 spectators in a stadium crush 27 years ago, a long-running judicial process has concluded.
A jury that spent two years considering evidence from the disaster ruled the deaths were a breach of criminal law — reversing an earlier verdict of accidental death.
Some 96 Liverpool fans died at the Hillsborough stadium in 1989, the worst disaster in British sporting history.
In a verdict that was widely anticipated in the U.K., the jury Tuesday answered “yes” when asked whether police error caused or contributed to a dangerous situation at the football match.
They also concluded the behavior of Liverpool fans did not contribute to the tragedy.
Television pictures showed friends and relatives of the victims gathering at the courthouse cheering and sobbing as the verdict became known.
The Hillsborough crush in April 1989 occurred after Liverpool fans pushed their way into a terrace in the stadium in Sheffield, in north central England, to watch their team’s FA Cup semi-final match against Nottingham Forest.
Television footage from the match showed spectators climbing the fence separating the terrace from the pitch in their desperation to escape the crush, while others were pulled up to safety by fans in the upper stand.
Tuesday’s verdict replaces an official investigation from 1991, which ruled the deaths were accidental despite claims by the victims’ relatives that police officers had been negligent by allowing fans to continue to enter the stadium.
That decision was quashed and a fresh inquest ordered in 2012.
The new verdict could open a path to prosecute David Duckenfield, the officer in charge of the police operation at the match who decided to open the stadium’s exit gates to allow hundreds more fans inside.
