Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), faces a call to resign over her previous role in a Hillsborough victim’s case that relatives claim helped hide the truth behind Britain’s worst sporting tragedy and delayed justice for 20 years.
As a legal adviser to the attorney-general in 1996, Saunders rejected calls for a new inquest in the case of Kevin Williams, a 15-year-old Liverpool fan, despite evidence that he survived the initial crush on overcrowded terraces, contrary to the original coroner’s conclusion.
Saunders dismissed a dossier of evidence collected by Williams’s mother Anne that suggested he died in a police officer’s arms half an hour later, after opening his eyes and saying “Mum”.
Documents seen by The Sunday Times show that Saunders concluded seven years after the 1989 disaster there was “no reason” to reopen the case, and “nothing which makes a fresh inquest necessary or in the interests of justice”.
Danny Gordon, Kevin’s uncle, said the family believed Saunders should be “held accountable” for her advice in 1996 not to hold a new inquiry into his death.
Advertisement
The most controversial of Saunders’s findings concerned the coroner’s conclusion in the first inquest that Williams had died by 3.15pm, the time the coroner had set as a cut-off point for evidence.
The time was chosen on the grounds that all the victims had suffered their fatal injuries by then. Yet relatives have long complained that the cut-off in effect excluded serious scrutiny of the aftermath of the tragedy, and whether some of the victims might have been saved had the response of the police and emergency services been more effective.
Seven years after the disaster, the Williams family applied for a new inquest, citing testimony from a special constable, Debra Martin, who claimed Williams died in her arms at “about ten to four” — suggesting that earlier treatment might have saved him. Saunders eventually concluded it was “doubtful whether the uncertainties [around Kevin’s death] have any bearing on a legal issue . . . in view of this there seems even less reason to support a new inquest”.
It would take a further 20 years for an independent report to shatter the police version of events, and for the deaths of the 96 victims to be re-examined by an inquest jury. Last week, among a series of incendiary findings that have plunged policing into a new crisis, the second inquest validated the Williams family’s evidence and ruled that the teenager could have been alive as late as 3.45pm.
The inquest jury also ruled that all the victims were unlawfully killed, that police officers involved in the case were guilty of gross negligence and that fans’ behaviour played no part in the tragedy, reversing 27 years of false claims. Dozens of retired police officers are now under criminal investigation for offences including manslaughter through gross negligence, perjury, perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office.
Advertisement
“Ms Saunders rejected Anne’s evidence as not being in the interests of justice,” Kevin’s uncle said last week. “The evidence was all there in 1996 but she rejected it.”
He added: “It would have saved all the heartache for the families and the cost to the taxpayer. I think her position now as DPP is untenable. Ms Saunders should be held accountable for that decision she made 20 years ago.”
Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary, who has fought a long-running campaign on Hillsborough, called for the files relating to Saunders’s advice to be made public. He also revealed that Labour was to table an amendment to current legislation that would allow generous police pensions to be stripped from officers found guilty of misconduct after they have retired.
“The Hillsborough families feel very strongly about, over the years, people using retirement as a means of evading misconduct proceedings and to safeguard pensions,” he said. “I think it is a major moment for police reform.”
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said: “This decision was taken in 1996 by the then attorney-general, not Alison Saunders. Her advice was based on evidence available at the time.”