Hillsborough crush like a human cascade, says fan who helped injured

The lethal crush in the central “pens” of the Leppings Lane terrace at Hillsborough in 1989, in which 96 people were killed, was like a “waterfall”, a “human cascade”, a Liverpool supporter who helped injured and dying people has recalled.

Frederick Eccleston, who was 55 when he went to support Liverpool against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-final at Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium, said he was a nurse manager with Wirral Health Authority who gave first aid and tried to resuscitate people pulled out of the crush.

Giving evidence at the trial for manslaughter of David Duckenfield, the former chief superintendent with South Yorkshire police who was in command at the match, Eccleston said that from his position on the north-west terrace, he could see that people were “in trouble” in the central pens, shortly after the match kicked off at 3pm.

As he had some medical training, Eccleston said he asked a steward and police officer’s permission to go on to the pitch, then ran to an open gate in front of the pens and began helping a police officer pull people out.

“I stood alongside him and I’ve never seen his face. To me he is my hero,” Eccleston told the court. “We both were pulling people out of that human cascade. It was like a waterfall, with people tumbling down on each other.”

They pulled people out by their arms, legs, hair and cheeks, Eccleston said, and he recalled “a memory I will die with” of people trapped in the crush.

“There were two young ladies, whispering ‘help us’, as their complexion was turning blue,” he said.

Eccleston tried to resuscitate people and helped take some of those injured to the Hillsborough gymnasium, where he later saw “40 or 50 body bags, filling up with people”.

Questioned by Christine Agnew QC, for the prosecution, Eccleston said he had been to the semi-final at Hillsborough the previous year, also between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, with his daughter, Jo. In 1988, he said, police were checking that people had tickets at the approach to the Leppings Lane end, which was allocated to Liverpool supporters, before allowing them to proceed to the turnstiles. Once inside, he said, he and his daughter headed towards a tunnel facing them, but they were turned away by police officers and stewards stationed in front of it, who told them the pen it led to was full.

The jury at Preston crown court has already been told that in 1989, when Duckenfield was in command, police did not check for tickets outside the 23 Leppings Lane turnstiles allocated for all 24,000 people supporting Liverpool. A large crowd built up at the turnstiles, in which Eccleston said he had been lifted off his feet, and “catapulted” over a turnstile. At 2.52pm, Duckenfield agreed with a third request from a superintendent, Roger Marshall, for large exit gates to be opened to alleviate that crush outside. Inside the ground, the tunnel leading to the central pens was not closed off, and many of the approximately 2,000 people who came in went down the tunnel. The lethal crush took place in the central pens.

The judge, Sir Peter Openshaw, thanked Eccleston for coming to court to give evidence. He replied: “It’s my privilege and duty to be here today. I witnessed some terrible scenes which will live with me ... And thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

Fiona Nicol, a constable in 1989 on duty in front of the Leppings Lane terraces, also recalled the Leppings Lane tunnel being closed previously, saying she had at one match been ordered to stand in front of it with other officers. She was asked for her impression of Duckenfield after he was promoted and took over as her divisional commander at Hammerton Road police station, 19 days before the semi-final. “I believed him to be: what he said went,” she said. “If he told us how something was going to happen … that’s how we were supposed to do it.”

Nicol said she had been “frightened” to open the gate in front of pen 1, which was not fully occupied, and allow people in from pen 3, because the police operational order, and Duckenfield personally, had specified the gates could not be opened except to provide medical attention. Asked by Agnew why she had been frightened, Nicol replied: “When I’d seen Mr Duckenfield before that, he came round to see our shift. He told us he was here to sort it out and make us toe the line, because of things that had happened at Hammerton Road in the past.”

Nicol recalled that she did open the gate in front of pen 3 to allow out a man who was with four or five boy scouts, and she then kept the gate in front of pen 1 open to allow more people into it. She became involved shortly afterwards in helping people who had been pulled out of the crush in pens 3 and 4, and administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to two people, she told Agnew, but they died.

The court heard evidence earlier about Duckenfield’s command in the control box from Robert McRobbie, a chief inspector there as a training exercise, to observe football match policing. McRobbie said Duckenfield had thought “very deeply” about the order to open the exit gates, at 2.52pm, after Marshall had warned somebody could be killed outside. Richard Matthews QC, lead barrister for the prosecution, asked McRobbie about the moments after Duckenfield ordered the gates opened: “Do you remember any other orders that Mr Duckenfield gave at any time?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t remember that,” McRobbie said.

Duckenfield is charged with gross negligence manslaughter in relation to 95 of the people who died. Graham Mackrell, the former Sheffield Wednesday club secretary and safety officer, is on trial alongside him, charged with two criminal breaches of safety legislation. Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The trial continues.