Judge to decide on David Duckenfield Hillsborough charges

A legal hearing to determine whether the former South Yorkshire police chief superintendent David Duckenfield can be prosecuted for 95 counts of manslaughter in relation to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster has begun at Preston crown court.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which announced its intention to charge Duckenfield last June, is applying for a legal bar against prosecuting him to be lifted.

Duckenfield was the police officer in command of the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground, at which 95 people died in a crush. The 96th victim, Tony Bland, died when his life support machine was switched off in 1993, outside the legal time limit for a manslaughter charge.

The stay on further prosecutions of Duckenfield was ordered by Mr Justice Hooper in 2000 following a private prosecution.

The CPS application to lift the stay, legally termed a “voluntary bill of indictment”, is to be ruled upon by the judge Sir Peter Openshaw. He has emphasised reporting restrictions on the arguments in court, which are not being heard by a jury.

A small group of bereaved relatives of the 96 people killed in the disaster travelled to the court to attend the hearing, and sat in the public seats.

The CPS has already charged five other men with criminal offences relating to the disaster and South Yorkshire police’s handling of it. Graham Mackrell, Sheffield Wednesday’s former secretary and safety officer is charged with three breaches of safety legislation; the former South Yorkshire police chief superintendent Donald Denton and chief inspector Alan Foster are charged with acts tending and intending to pervert the course of justice, as is the force’s former solicitor Peter Metcalf. Sir Norman Bettison, a South Yorkshire police chief inspector at the time of the disaster, later the chief constable of Merseyside and of West Yorkshire police, is charged with four counts of misconduct in a public office.

Duckenfield was granted legal aid funding in December to pay for lawyers, including Ben Myers QC, to represent him through the hearing of the CPS application.

The Preston hearing is scheduled to last two days, on 26 and 27 February, after which Openshaw will make his determination.