Hillsborough verdict: Officer in charge of crowd safety could face prosecution
The words that led to the verdict of the unlawful killing of 96 Liverpool supporters on April 15, 1989 could see the prosecution of David Duckenfield, the police officer who was in charge of crowd safety that day.
Related - Hillsborough inquest: 96 victims unlawfully killed, Liverpool fans exonerated
The former chief superintendent of the South Yorkshire police was found to have owed a duty of care to those who lost their lives, and his confession in the Warrington courtroom could see him guilty of gross negligence, among other charges, in his role.
Duckenfield admitted to claiming that Liverpool fans had forced open the Leppings Lane gate at the Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, but those assertions were false, providing significant evidence of a police cover-up.
"If we're categorising things, that was a terrible lie, in that everybody knew the truth. The fans knew the truth, that we'd opened the gates, the police officers knew we'd opened the gates," Duckenfield told Michael Mansfield QC and jurors of the end of the stadium where the fatal crush occurred.
Duckenfield conceded that he was "practising and persisted in a far-reaching deceit" in lying to both the Football Association and football club officials about Liverpool fans partaking in unruly and dangerous behaviour. He didn't admit to his horrific errors until this latest inquest.
"I am now very much older, very much wiser, and very much more understanding of the events of the day and have decided to tell the whole truth," Duckenfield said some 27 years after the FA Cup semi-final tie against Nottingham Forest, and 16 years after his deputy superintendent Bernard Murray was acquitted and he was granted a stay of prosecution after the jury failed to reach a verdict.
The Crown Prosecution Service will now work alongside Operation Resolve, the investigation into possible manslaughter and other criminal offences, and IPCC, which deals with police complaints, to explore lifting the stay of prosecution to begin legal proceedings against Duckenfield.
"Following the inquests' determinations, the CPS team will continue to work closely with Operation Resolve and the IPCC as in due course the CPS will formally consider whether any criminal charges should be brought against any individual or corporate body based upon all the available evidence, in accordance with the code for crown prosecutors," Sue Hemming, head of special crime and counter-terrorism at the CPS, said in a statement.
According to the Guardian's David Conn, "offences under consideration include gross negligence, manslaughter, misconduct in a public office, perverting the course of justice, and breaches of health and safety and stadium safety legislation."
The charges could go deep into the South Yorkshire police, with 260 of the force's accounts of the disaster being investigated for any misleading or tampered evidence. The West Midlands police are also being probed after they were selected as an independent investigator into the unlawful killing.