Sir Norman Bettison showed politicians a video about the Hillsborough disaster compiled by South Yorkshire police, then reported that two Conservative MPs had promised to “attack” Lord Justice Taylor’s 1989 official report into the cause of the tragedy, a court has heard.
Bettison, then a superintendent with the force, told the new inquests into the disaster in Warrington on Friday that officers were “aggrieved” after the Taylor report, feeling that media coverage was holding the police solely responsible for the deaths of 96 people at Hillsborough.
On 3 October 1989, Bettison attended a Police Federation meeting with the MP Michael Shersby, at which the Tory was quoted as telling rank-and-file officers: “You have the opportunity to present more balance to the [Taylor] report.”
The minutes quoted Bettison discussing some comments removed from officers’ original accounts of what happened at Hillsborough, and deciding whether they should be considered as evidence. These included, as an example, a description of Liverpool supporters which said: “They were all animals.”
Bettison, who later became the chief constable of Merseyside police, told the new inquests officers were aggrieved that some of their derogatory comments about fans were taken out, but he said he was not sure the minutes did reflect what he had said at the meeting.
The minutes also recorded Bettison as having said that at Hillsborough, the venue of the 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, “the crowd was massively uncooperative”. Bettison said the minutes of the meeting were unsatisfactory, that other people may have been contributing comments, and he could not recall if he had indeed described the crowd as uncooperative.
After that meeting, Bettison said he went to parliament on 8 November 1989 to present the compilation video to a group of MPs following a request from Shersby, who represented the Police Federation in parliament. Bettison said it was “a surprising task” for him to be asked to do.
The MPs included Labour’s Keith Vaz, Joe Ashton and Tom Pendry, the Liberal Democrat Menzies Campbell and Shersby. Bettison wrote a report of the meeting to the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, Peter Wright, in which he wrote that he doubted opinions had been changed.
He then referred to the fact that the parliamentary debate about the Taylor report had been delayed until the start of 1990.
Bettison wrote in his report: “At least two Conservative MPs expressed disappointment that the debate was not more imminent, as they believed the passage of time will diminish the impact of their ‘promised’ attack upon the findings of the interim report.”
He confirmed that, during the Taylor inquiry, he was at the “beck and call” of the South Yorkshire police lawyers, which included fetching sandwiches for them at lunchtime.
However, Bettison denied the evidence of a former inspector, Clive Davis, that he had said on the Monday after the disaster that Hillsborough was a chance for him to be noticed within the force.
Bettison said he had not been involved in the force’s changing of officers’ statements after the disaster, but was aware of the process because his own statement had been subject to “amendation”.
The inquests continue.
