The former Sheffield Wednesday safety officer accused of criminal offences in relation to the 1989 disaster at the club’s Hillsborough ground, in which 96 people died, has denied he was negligent in the performance of his role.
Graham Mackrell, 69, will argue that the standards expected of a football ground safety officer were much lower in 1989 to those that apply now, his barrister, Jason Beer QC, told the jury at Preston crown court.
Beer said Mackrell relied for the safety arrangements at Hillsborough on South Yorkshire police and an “eminent” structural engineer, Dr Wilfred Eastwood, but their methods were seriously flawed. Beer suggested the “informal” approach of the former police match commander, Ch Supt Brian Mole, might have made Hillsborough “a disaster waiting to happen”. He said that Eastwood, who died in September 2014 aged 91, might be charged with criminal offences had he still been alive.
Mackrell, a trained accountant who joined Sheffield Wednesday as the club secretary in 1986 from Luton Town, took on the responsibilities of safety officer as part of his position, Beer said. The safety officer role was introduced that year as guidance in the Green Guide to safety at sports grounds following the fire at Bradford City’s Valley Parade ground in 1985 in which 56 people were killed. Beer said no training courses were provided for the “so-called” safety officers, nor any guidance for the qualifications or experience they must have.
Mackrell is charged with a criminal breach of the Safety at Sports Grounds Act 1975 due to his alleged failure to agree with police, as required by the Hillsborough safety certificate, the arrangements at the Leppings Lane end turnstiles for 24,500 Liverpool supporters to enter the ground. He is further accused of breaching his duties under the Health and Safety Act 1974 by failing to ensure the number of turnstiles was sufficient to avoid “unduly large crowds” building up waiting to get through, and by failing to draw up contingency plans if that did happen.
“Mr Mackrell denies he failed to show care or was negligent,” Beer told the jury.
Mackrell is standing trial charged alongside the officer who replaced Mole as match commander for the 1989 semi-final, David Duckenfield, who is accused of gross negligence manslaughter. Duckenfield has pleaded not guilty and his barrister, Ben Myers QC, told the jury on Thursday that Duckenfield had been “unfairly singled out” for prosecution.
Both defendants sat in the body of the court among the barristers and solicitors, rather than in the dock.
Beer said that the engineer, Eastwood, employed by Sheffield Wednesday to work on the physical layout of Hillsborough, was dominant and “overbearing”. He, not Mackrell, was responsible for the calculation of the Leppings Lane terrace’s capacity – 10,200 – which was not reduced after its division into “pens” with a high metal fence in front, in which the lethal crush happened. An expert engineer, John Cutlack, has calculated that capacity to be substantially excessive.
“Mr Eastwood is no longer with us,” Beer told the jury, “otherwise he might be standing here in this court.”
Responsibility for policing ultimately lay with Mole, an experienced match commander who was in charge of the semi-final at Hillsborough the year before, also between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Mole was replaced by Duckenfield, who was promoted to chief superintendent 19 days before the 1989 semi-final.
Mole was very experienced, Beer acknowledged, but he had an “informal” approach, which meant that meetings were not minuted or documented, and that there was little in the police’s operational documentation that set out how to avoid overcrowding on the pens.
“Mr Mole’s approach may have made it a disaster waiting to happen,” Beer said.
Following the prosecution opening and Myers and Beer setting out the basis for the defences, the trial heard the first witness, James Chumley, a Tottenham Hotspur supporter. He told the court he had written a letter of complaint to the Sheffield Wednesday chairman, Bert McGee, after being refused access to the Leppings Lane terraces by police at the 1981 FA Cup semi-final against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Tottenham supporters suffered a crush at that game, the jury has heard.
Chumley said a police officer had told him the terraces were full, that the Leppings Lane was the “worst end” of Hillsborough and that “at big games the situation was always the same”. The officer told him that in his opinion the capacity for the terraces was “over-declared”.
Chumley said he never received a reply to his letter from the club. The first response he had was from police investigating the disaster, in 2014.
The trial continues.
