Criminal Justice System: Families Bereaved by Public Disasters — House of Commons, 2021-09-16
Topic: Law and Crime
Ian Robert Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for everything that she has done for Hillsborough survivors and families. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for allowing me leave from the Building Safety Bill Committee. I know that he and my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) both desperately wanted to attend this debate; however, they have to attend the Committee to scrutinise the Bill, so I place this on record on their behalf and for their constituents. On Wednesday 26 May 2021, the British legal system and the establishment delivered their final insult to the families and survivors of Hillsborough, after three decades of what felt like a targeted attack on them and on a city. Ninety-seven people were unlawfully killed at Hillsborough, due to police gross negligence. A nightmare 32-year ordeal through the British legal system has ended with an outcome that feels like a final insult. Mr Justice William Davis’s ruling in May acquitted two ex-South Yorkshire police officers and the force’s former lawyer of perverting the course of justice by amending police statements. Mr Justice Davis’s view, apparently, is that the police officers and their solicitor could, in principle, legally withhold crucial evidence from the Taylor inquiry The result is that nobody has been held accountable for the needless deaths, injuries and enduring trauma suffered at Hillsborough, despite the 2016 inquest verdicts that the 96—now 97—victims were unlawfully killed due to the disastrous actions of the police and the officer in command, Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield. Is it any wonder that faith in the legal system has been utterly corroded for many after the experiences suffered This can never be repeated. Justice has been denied for so many. That is why the proposed Bill and set of reforms matter so much. My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) has been a champion of the families and survivors since her election; I thank her for everything she has done for them. She will never know how much it has meant My own experience will be familiar to many survivors, but I would like to take the House back to a 16-year-old in 1989—how his view of the establishment was shaped and why this Bill matters so much to him. I watched the horrors of Hillsborough unfold from the side pen because of fate In 1988, I had stood with my two friends directly behind the goal—it was edgy, but we walked out celebrating a great victory and got home safely. In 1989, we had another Kopite with us. We headed back to the same place for the big game hours before, full of excitement and anticipation, like so many others. My friend started feeling extremely uncomfortable with the numbers, and we decided to move our way back down the tunnel to a side pen. That was fate, because it was before Duckenfield made his disastrous decision. I am sure all four of us who were there, and who are now parents and grandparents, thank whatever powers made us take that fateful decision to move I knew my dad and his mates—