Page:Hillsborough Taylor Interim Report Cm765.pdf/37

 practice, police officers have regularly attended in large numbers at football grounds, it has somehow been assumed by the clubs that the responsibility for control of what goes on inside the ground has passed from them to the police. A police presence is there to assist in the enforcement of law and order. Those responsible for organising a private function, however, have the primary and continuing obligation and responsibility to ensure reasonable safety for those who are invited on to their premises." Mr Justice Popplewell ended that section as follows: "It cannot be too strongly emphasised that it is upon the club, or the occupier of the ground who is putting on the function, that the primary and continuing obligation rests."

There remains, however, the question whether there are some grounds or parts of grounds where the club may need to rely upon the police (whom they pay to attend) to control filling of pens and monitoring them for overcrowding. In other words, whilst the duty in law to ensure safety rests upon the club, they may need, and by agreement be entitled, to employ the police to act as their agents in certain circumstances. This very difficult and grey area as to club and police responsibility will need to be reviewed in greater depth at stage two of this Inquiry.

Arrangements at Hillsborough

What is clear, however, is that de facto the police at Hillsborough had accepted responsibility for control of the pens at the Leppings Lane end. The evidence of the senior officers who had been concerned with policing at Hillsborough over the years was all one way on this point. Only Mr Duckenfield, who had not policed at Hillsborough for some 10 years prior to 15 April, took a different view.

Mr Lock is now security officer at Sheffield Wednesday and was formerly a police Superintendent at Hillsborough matches occupying Mr Murray's role. He claimed there had been a formal although unwritten agreement between the Club and the police in about 1982, whereby the police agreed to steward the Leppings Lane end of the ground. Such a formal agreement is denied by other senior officers and I do not accept that any formal agreement was reached. Nevertheless, a practice or arrangement did develop which was known and accepted by both Club and police. Its effect was that throughout the ground the stewards were responsible for manning exits and entrances, for controlling entry into the stands, for assisting spectators to their seats in the stands and for helping to control the exits after the match. They were also responsible at the Kop end on the terraces for keeping gangways clear and helping to control the crowd which usually consisted of home supporters. At the Leppings Lane end, however, there were no gangways on the terraces and the crowd consisted usually (and always since 1987) of away supporters. Mr Mole and other senior officers accepted that it would have been unreal and unreasonable to expect stewards to go onto those Leppings Lane terraces. They would not have been effective there; moreover, they could well have been in some danger from hostile away supporters. The police accepted, therefore, that the proper filling of the pens and monitoring them for overcrowding could and would not be carried out by stewards. Many stewards have tended to be either extremely young or somewhat elderly. They are paid only a modest sum (£9 at Hillsborough) and they are not suitable either by physique or by training to cope on a crowded terrace with no gangways.

Case for the South Yorkshire Police

Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence from senior police as already mentioned and from the Club, Counsel for the South Yorkshire Police continued throughout the hearing to contend that the Club and not the police were responsible for filling and monitoring the pens and that this was well known to both parties. He maintained that the police were there essentially to secure and preserve law and order. Quite apart from the police evidence to the contrary at this Inquiry, the official stance of the South Yorkshire Police has not always been to that effect.

Harris -v- Sheffield United Football Club Limited

In March 1986, the South Yorkshire Police Authority obtained a judgement against Sheffield United Football Club for money due for police services provided at Sheffield United's matches. The defence had been, inter alia, that the police were not providing "special police services". They were doing no more than performing their normal police duties of securing and preserving law and order amongst a crowd. The police argument was that they had additional duties. In his judgement, Boreham J summarised the instructions for policing as providing for:"(a) the maintenance of enforcement of law and order; (b) the enforcement of the Club's ground regulations, many of which are concerned with law and order; (c) the safety and comfort of the spectators, officials and players." Rh