- Posted in Police Blog
Sir Norman Bettison, who was part of South Yorkshire police inquiry, refuses to quit as head of West Yorkshire force.
• Read Bettison’s Hillsborough statement in full
Sir Norman Bettison: ‘I really welcome the disclosure of all the facts that can be known because I have absolutely nothing to hide’
A senior police officer who was involved in the Hillsborough operation has refused calls from victims’ families to resign, saying he has nothing to hide.
Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire police, released a detailed statement outlining his belief that he had done nothing wrong. Bettison was a chief inspector and later a superintendent in South Yorkshire police, and a member of the force’s internal inquiry team.
The unit was condemned by the families of Hillsborough victims, and by the Labour MP Maria Eagle in parliament, as a black propaganda unit designed to smear the fans and shift blame from the police onto the victims.
Trevor Hicks, whose two daughters died at Hillsborough, said Bettison should “scurry up a drainpipe” and resign in the aftermath of the publication of the Hillsborough report on Wednesday.
The former home secretary Jack Straw also indicated on Radio 4′s Today Programme that Bettison should examine his position
* “Whilst not wishing to become a conducting rod for all the genuine and justified hurt and anguish, I would invite anyone to do the same as me and read the document and the papers online.”
Sir Norman Bettison
Bettison – one of the UK’s most senior officers – said in a statement that he welcomed the 395-page report for endorsing his position. He made no apologies for his role in the aftermath of the Hillsborough tragedy.
Bettison said he had always believed what the Taylor report found, that “the disaster was caused, mainly, through a lack of police control”.
He went on: “Fans behaviour, to the extent that it was relevant at all, made the job of the police, in the crush outside Leppings Lane turnstiles, harder than it needed to be. But it didn’t cause the disaster any more than the sunny day that encouraged people to linger outside the stadium as kick off approached.
“I held those views then, I hold them now. I have never, since hearing the Taylor evidence unfold, offered any other interpretation in public or private.
“In the absence of all the facts I was called upon to resign 14 years ago when I became chief constable of Merseyside,” he said.
“I really welcome disclosure of all the facts that can be known about the Hillsborough tragedy because I have absolutely nothing to hide … Whilst not wishing to become a conducting rod for the genuine and justified hurt and anguish I would invite anyone to do the same as me and read the document and the papers online.”
Bettison spoke out as a former chief constable of South Yorkshire, Richard Wells, who took over in the aftermath of the disaster, said prosecutions of police officers were essential after the revelations about the scale of the cover-up in the force, which at the time was “secretive, defensive and authoritarian”.
Bettison denied that his role in an internal inquiry team from south Yorkshire police was to foment black propaganda and transfer blame for the tragedy onto the fans. Instead he said the review team was charged with “pieceing together what had taken place.”
He made clear he had not been part of a unit which was responsible for doctoring police statements.
Bettison said: “In 1989, I was a chief inspector in a non-operational role at headquarters. Four days after the disaster (and after all the vile newspaper coverage had been written) I was one of several officers pulled together by the then deputy chief constable, Peter Hays, to support him in piecing together what had taken place at the event.
“By that time, the chief constable, Peter Wright, had handed over the formal investigation of the tragedy to an independent police force, West Midlands police. It was West Midlands police that presented evidence before the Taylor inquiry. The South Yorkshire deputy chief constable’s team, under the leadership of Chief Superintendent Wain, was a parallel activity to inform chief officers of facts rather than rely on the speculation rampant at that time.
“Another team was later created … to work with the solicitors who were representing South Yorkshire police at the Taylor inquiry, to vet statements from South Yorkshire police officers that were intended to be presented to the inquiry … I never altered a statement nor asked for one to be altered. Two South Yorkshire police teams have been conflated in the minds of some commentators.”
Bettison said he sat through every day of the Taylor inquiry, published in August 1989, and briefed the South Yorkshire chief constable and deputy on the proceedings. “These briefings acknowledged and accepted the responsibility of the force in the disaster. The evidence was overwhelming,” he said.
“Shortly after the conclusion of the Taylor inquiry, I was posted to other duties. I had nothing further to do with the subsequent coroners’ inquests and proceedings, other than occasional advice because of my knowledge of the evidence presented to the Taylor inquiry.”
Hillsborough report: senior police officer says he has ‘nothing to hide’
See: Hillsborough families call for resignation of senior police officer
