Page:Hillsborough Taylor Interim Report Cm765.pdf/77

 APPENDIX 6

SPECIFIC INCIDENTS

Mr Hicks' Evidence

Mr and Mrs Hicks' two daughters died in the disaster. They had arrived early en famille but had tickets for different sections. The two daughters had standing tickets; they went into pen 3. Mrs Hicks had a seat in the north stand. Mr Hicks took up a standing position in pen 1 just below and to the west of the police box at about 2.15 pm From there, he had a view of the centre pens. He kept an eye on them as they filled up since he knew his daughters to be there.

His evidence was that by 2.50 pm he could see people were in distress. At about 2.55 pm he and others called to a senior police officer at the top of the steps to the control box to draw his attention to the crushing. Mr Hicks was only about 10 feet from the officer. He described him as wearing a flat cap with gold or silver braid and a light coloured anorak. Mr Hicks believed he was the officer who stopped the match. Mr Greenwood, who did stop the match, was certainly not wearing a light coloured anorak, as can clearly be seen on the video.

Mr Hicks says that he and others shouted several times to this officer in attempts to alert him to the distress in the pens. There was no reaction although Mr Hicks believes the officer must have been in earshot.

That officer descended from the steps and two cameramen whom Mr Hicks believed were from television came and appeared to direct their cameras towards the pens. Another senior officer appeared two steps down from the platform. He was a stocky figure; he also wore a flat cap but with black braid. Mr Hicks says that he and two or three others tried several times to capture this officer's attention without success. Then Mr Hicks says he shouted "For Christ's sake! Can't you see what's going on? We can, and you have cameras". The officer is said to have replied dismissively "Shut your fucking prattle".

When the disaster occurred the two Hicks girls were crushed. Victoria was put in an ambulance and Mr Hicks accompanied her to hospital where she was found to be dead. Sarah died at the ground.

Mr Hicks was an impressive witness and, despite his grievous loss, remarkably stoical. He gave his evidence clearly and without rancour. He was certainly mistaken about Mr Greenwood being one of those on the steps and it has not been possible to identify either officer from Mr Hicks' descriptions. He may well also have been imprecise as to timings. Nevertheless, I see no reason to doubt that what he described did occur in relation to two officers. As Mr Hicks generously said himself, the dismissive abuse from the second officer (although reprehensible) may have been due to his being preoccupied with trying to see what was happening at pens 3 and 4 around kick-off time.

The Goalkeeper and Gate 4

Mr Barnbrock, a Liverpool supporter, said he went through the tunnel. He would have liked to have turned back when he saw how crowded the pens were. He went with his father and 13 year old brother Stephen towards the front of pen 4. He saw the teams come onto the pitch. Conditions at the front were, he said, alright until about 2 minutes to 3. Then the pressure in the pen increased and he and his father became separated. His feet came off the ground. He shouted to police officers through the fence to get them out and help them. The police did not react. The Liverpool goalkeeper, Bruce Grobbelaar, spoke to a policeman on the track. The gate was then opened by a blonde policewoman and about 25 to 30 people went through it. They included the witness's father and his brother Stephen who had a broken arm. A police Constable shut the gate. It was then reopened by the same policewoman, the witness thought, and he got out.

Mr Eccleston, a male nurse and an impressive witness, was sitting in the north stand. He noticed pens 3 and 4 were full and realised something was wrong when fans started coming over the perimeter fence but did not invade the pitch. He said the Liverpool goalkeeper appeared to notice this too.

Mr Grobbelaar was out of the country during the Inquiry and was therefore not called. However, he made a statement which was put in as his evidence. In the course of it he said:

"Kick-off happened and we got into our stride pretty quickly — we forced a corner pretty early on and the ball came down to my end — I rolled it out to the full back once and play went on until Peter Beardsley hit the crossbar of the Nottingham Forest goal from a corner and came back into play. I remember just after that there were shouts and screams from the crowd just behind me, it was different; not the ordinary crowd noise and I turned around to look. What amazed me first was the concentration and squash of fans in the centre Rh